MODERN  AMERICAN  WRITERS 


OUR  POETS 


FEfOR. 

A-sIoy 

ENJTES 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 


Our  Poets  of  Today 


BY 
HOWARD  WILLARD  COOK 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 
1918 


PS 


COPYRIGHT,  1918, 

BY 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 


TO 
MY  MOTHER 

AND 
J.    W.    P. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

To  our  American  poets,  to  the  publishers  and  editors  of  the 
various  periodicals  and  books  from  whose  pages  the  quotations 
in  this  work  are  taken,  I  wish  to  give  my  sincere  thanks  for  their 
interest  and  co-operation  in  making  this  book  possible. 

To  the  following  publishers  I  am  obliged  for  the  privilege  of 
using  selections  which  appear,  under  their  copyright,  and  from 
which  I  have  quoted  in  full  or  in  part: 

The  Macmillan  Company:  The  Chinese  Nightingale,  The 
Congo  and  Other  Poems  and  General  Booth  Enters  Heaven  by 
Vachel  Lindsay,  Love  Songs  by  Sara  Teasdale,  The  Road  to  Cas- 
laly  by  Alice  Brown,  The  New  Poetry  and  Anthology  by  Harriet 
Monroe  and  Alice  Corbin  Henderson,  Songs  and  Satires,  Spoon 
River  Anthology  and  Toward  the  Gulf  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters, 
The  Man  Against  the  Sky  and  Merlin  by  Edwin  Arlington  Rob 
inson,  Poems  by  Percy  MacKaye  and  Tendencies  in  Modern 
American  Poetry  by  Am>  Lowell. 

Messrs.  Henry  Holt  and  Company:  Chicago  Poems  by  Carl 
Sandburg,  These  Times  by  Louis  Untermeyer,  A  Boy's  Will, 
North  of  Boston  and  Mountain  Interval  by  Robert  Frost,  The 
Old  Road  to  Paradise  by  Margaret  Widdener,  My  Ireland  by 
Francis  Carlin,  and  Outcasts  in  Beulah  Land  by  Roy  Helton. 

Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons:  The  Shadow  of  Mtna  by  Louis 
V.,  Ledoux,  Sea  Dogs  and  Men  at  Arms,  by  Jesse  E.  Middleton, 
Helen  of  Troy  by  Sara  Teasdale,  and  In  Flanders'  Fields  by  John 
MacCrae. 

Messrs.  John  Lane  Company:  Mid-American  Chants  by 
Sherwood  Anderson,  Gardens  Overseas  and  Other  Poems  by 
Thomas  Walsh,  Carmina  by  T.  A.  Daly,  Sea  and  Bay  by  Charles 
Wharton  Stork,  The  Sailor  Wht  Has  Sailed,  A  Wand  and  Strings 
and  The  House  That  Was  by  Benjamin  R.  C.  Low. 

The  Stratford  Press:  The  Poets  of  the  Future  by  Henry  T. 
Schnittkind. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Messrs.  George  H.  Doran  Company:  Main  Street  and  Other 
Poems  and  Trees  and  Other  Poems  by  Joyce  Kilmer,  The  Silver 
Trumpet  by  Josephine  Amelia  Burr,  A  Banjo  at  Armageddon  by 
Berton  Braley,  Sonnets  of  Sorrow  and  Triumph  by  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox,  and  Songs  for  a  Little  House  by  Christopher  Morley. 

The  Four  Seas  Company:  The  Jig  of  Forslin  by  Conrad 
Aiken,  and  Nocturne  of  Remembered  Spring  by  Conrad  Aiken. 

The  Century  Company:  Wraiths  and  Realities  by  Cale  Young 
Rice. 

Messrs.  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company:  The  Masque  of  Poets  by 
J.  O'Brien. 

Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons:  American  Poetry  by  Percy 
H.  Boynton,  and  Poems  by  Alan  Seeger. 

Messrs.  Frederick  A.  Stokes:  Grenstone  Poems  by  Witter 
Bynner. 

Messrs.  Small,  Maynard  and  Company:  Anthology  of 
Magazine  Verse  by  William  Stanley  Braithwaite. 

Messrs.  Barse  and  Hopkins:  The  Spell  of  the  Yukon,  The 
Ballads  of  a  Cheechako,  and  Rhymes  of  a  Red  Cross  Man  by 
Robert  W.  Service. 

Messrs.  Moffat,  Yard  and  Company:  City  Ways  and  Com 
pany  Streets  by  Private  Charles  Divine,  and  Wings  and  Other 
War  Rhymes  by  Anthony  Euwer. 

Mr.  Mitchell  Kennerley:  Spectra  by  Emanuel  Morgan  and 
Anne  Knish. 

Messrs.  Doubleday,  Page  and  Company:  The  Man  With  the 
Hoe  by  Edwin  Markham. 

Alfred  A.  Knopf:  Airs  and  Ballads  by  John  McClure.  Ezra 
Pound:  His  Metric  and  Poetry. 

Mr.  John  Hall  Wheelock:  The  Human  Fantasy,  Love  and 
Liberation,  and  The  Beloved  Adventure. 

Mr.  Donald  Evans:    Sonnets  from  the  Patagonian. 

The  Little  Review:  She  Goes  to  Pisa,  Dreams  in  War  Times, 
Depression  Before  Spring  and  Patterns. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The  Boston  Transcript,  The  New  York  Sun,  The  New  York 
Times,  Poetry,  A  Magazine  of  Verse,  Smart  Set,  and  Reedy's 
Mirror. 

Marshall  Jones  Company:  New  York  and  Other  Verses  by 
Frederic  K.  Mortimer  Clapp. 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.:  Irradiations — Sand  and  Spray  by 
John  Gould  Fletcher. 

William  Lyon  Phelps,  Annie  L.  Laney  and  Richard  Hunt. 

Good  Housekeeping:  To  One  in  Heaven  by  Charles  Hanson 
Towne. 

Harper's  Magazine:  The  Bather  by  Amy  Lowell. 

The  Newarker,  The  Nation,  and  the  New  York  Tribune. 

New  York  Times  Book  Review,  The  Bellman,  The  Bookman 
and  Poetry. 

Harper  Brothers:  The  Mirthful  Lyre  by  Arthur  Guiterman. 

John  G.  Neihardt:  A  Song  of  Hugh  Glass. 

Louis  Vernon  Ledoux:  Yzdra. 

George  Edward  Woodberry:  The  Flight  and  Other  Poems. 

Wilmrath  Publishing  Company:  The  Shadow-Eater  by  Benja 
min  De  Casseres. 


FOREWORD 

It  has  been  said  that  we  are  passing  through  a 
renaissance  of  poetry.  No  longer  does  the  cartoonist 
of  the  popular  comic  or  timely  satire  picture  the  long 
haired  individual  with  his  ream  of  spring  verse  be 
neath  his  arm,  a  moth-eaten  object  for  the  pity  of 
sane  beings.  He's  as  obsolete  as  the  Dodo,  save  per 
haps  in  the  sacred  and,  thank  God,  limited  circles  of 
Greenwich  Village,  Island  of  Manhattan. 

Today  the  poet  has  come  into  his  own.  He  receives 
a  fair  price  for  his  lines  and  has  forced  the  publisher 
out  of  his  traditional  rut  with  gasps  of  amazement 
that  a  book  of  verse  could  be  listed  as  a  best  seller. 

From  both  artistic  and  commercial  standpoints  con 
temporary  American  poetry  has  achieved  much.  Sara 
Teasdale  phrases  it,  "Contemporary  American  poetry 
has  proved  that  this  chaotic,  various,  intensely  young, 
masculine  country  of  ours  is  producing  the  best  poetry 
that  is  being  written  in  English  today.  I  think  that 
this  has  been  true  for  only  a  few  years  but  I  believe 
it  is  true  at  this  time  and  will  continue  to  be  so." 
It  is  about  such  men  and  women,  practical  purveyors 
of  a  necessary  food,  that  this  book  is  written. 

These  days,  instead  of  going  abroad  for  many 
things,  we  look  for  them  within  our  own  borders. 
With  Sara  Teasdale,  I  agree  that  America  today  is 
producing  some  of  as  fine  poetry  as  has  been  inspired 
by  the  World  War. 


FOREWORD 

Many  critics  have  attributed  to  the  war  the  so- 
called  poetry  market.  Certain  it  is  that  Rupert  Brooke 
was  largely  responsible  for  the  awakened  interest  in 
poetry  in  America.  As  a  nation,  not  as  individuals, 
our  poetic  sense  had  been  lying  temporarily  dormant. 
This  may  have  been  due  to  our  highly  developed  com 
mercial  pulse. 

If  a  poem  were  the  right  size  to  fill  a  certain  space 
in  a  magazine,  the  editor  paid  a  few  dollars  for  it. 
Today  there  are  magazines  devoted  exclusively  to  the 
publication  of  these  once-upon-a-time  "fillers,"  a 
boomerang  that  must  be  full  sweet  to  the  poet. 

One  of  the  greatest  poets  in  the  English  language 
had  to  be  "found"  in  England.  I  refer  to  Walt  Whit 
man.  He  was  never  properly  published  nor  generally 
read  in  his  own  day  by  his  own  countrymen.  Yet  he 
has  immortalized  democracy,  and  it  is  his  spirit  that 
has  found  rebirth  in  many  of  our  best  poets  of  today. 
To  them  he  says: 

"O  to  make  the  most  jubilant  poem ! 

Even  to  set  off  these,  and  merge  with  these,  the  carols 
of  death. 

O  full  of  music !  full  of  manhood,  womanhood  and  in 
fancy  ! 

Full  of  common  employments !  full  of  grain  and  trees. 

O  for  the  voices  of  animals !  O  for  the  swiftness  and 
balance  of  fishes! 

O  for  the  dropping  of  raindrops  in  a  poem! 

O  for  the  sunshine,  and  motion  of  waves  in  a  poem." 


FOREWORD 

We  have  been  slow  in  recognizing  our  own  liter 
ary  genius.  No  nation  ever  has  had  a  sweeter,  finer, 
nobler  singer  of  a  national  song,  than  America  in  Walt 
Whitman. 

But  it  is  not  of  our  poets  of  yesterday  that  I  have 
written.  My  purpose  in  this  book  is  simply  to  present 
our  American  poets  of  today,  to  tell  something  of 
their  lives,  their  writings,  what  they  have  done,  and 
what  they  bid  fair  to  do.  To  them  we  must  look  for 
the  reaction  of  our  times.  Not  long  ago  I  heard  Ar 
thur  Hunt  Chute  of  the  late  First  Canadian  Con 
tingent  say  of  our  present  day  poets,  "They  are  fight 
ing  with  us  and  for  us." 

I  have  endeavored  to  dispute  here  the  statement 
that  poets  are  for  "highbrows" — they  are  not.  Poets 
must  rise  from  the  people,  be  of  the  crowds,  their 
songs  must  be  the  song  of  the  mother  who  rocks  her 
little  one  in  her  arms,  of  the  clerk  at  his  desk,  of  the 
student  who  sits  alone  into  the  morning  hours,  and 
of  the  soldiers  in  the  trenches  fighting  for  the  soul  of 
the  world.  They  are  our  own  people.  Their  writings 
mirror  our  good  and  our  bad,  our  understanding  and 
our  misunderstanding,  our  ideals,  and  our  belief  in  a 
God  whose  creed  is  love. 

HOWARD  WILLARD  COOK. 


BY 

PERCY  MACKAYE 

This  book  makes  its  entrance  with  a  new  age. 

Youth  is  in  the  air — youth,  the  flower  and  seed  and 
sustenance  of  poetry. 

At  this  moment,  though  the  world  war  is  expiring 
on  the  verges  of  physical  winter,  spiritually  peace 
sweeps  towards  us  tidal  with  colossal  spring,  thawing 
with  the  break-up  of  old  congealed  forms,  fluid  with 
warm,  fresh  currents,  fecund  with  plastic  life. 

The  armistice  of  the  nations  is  glorious  and  terrible 
— with  spring. 

What  shall  be  the  bourgeoning — tomorrow? 

Outwardly,  the  works  collected  in  this  volume  are 
not  of  that  tomorrow ;  yet  inwardly  they  may  in  some 
measure  forecast  its  substance  and  spirit. 

Here  is  a  reality  achieved,  culled  from  that  recent 
past  which  we  call  today.  So  it  will  be  read  and  as 
sayed.  But  here  also  is  something  latent,  unachieved 
— SL  potentiality  of  today  which  is  the  new  age  in 
embryo. 

Happily  for  embryos,  they  are  not  yet  clothed  in 
the  fashions;  and  for  potentialities  there  are  no  pig 
eonholes.  So,  leaving  to  the  critic  and  scholar  their 


INTRODUCTION 

useful  tasks  of  assaying  and  classifying  these  poems, 
I  have  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  Editor  to  make 
my  own  comment — not  on  the  poems  themselves  (for 
I  have  been  shown  of  this  volume  only  the  list  of  the 
poets  whose  work  is  here  represented),  but  on  cer 
tain  potential  aspects  of  American  poetry  which  seem 
to  me  important  to  its  renascence  in  the  tomorrow  al 
ready  upon  us. 

I  feel  the  more  free  to  do  so  because  this  list  of 
poets  is  a  list  largely  of  old  friends,  many  of  them 
intimate  friends;  and  it  is  to  them,  gathered  here 
round  the  Editor's  hospitable  board,  more  than  to 
stranger  readers  in  the  visiting  gallery,  that  I  should 
like  to  submit  a  few  queries  and  suggestions  which 
may  possibly  appeal  to  them  as  craftsmen  and  fellow 
workers. 

And  first,  as  workers,  I  wonder  if  we  are  wholly 
a  wart  what  hermits  we  are,  and  what  too  little  of  fel 
lowship  enters  into  our  lives  as  poets  and  into  these 
contributions  of  ours  to  a  time  (despite  its  world 
war)  the  most  cooperative  the  earth  has  ever  known 
— an  age  that,  as  never  before,  cries  out  for  fellow 
ship  of  imagination  to  enlarge  and  reconstruct  the 
basic  architecture  of  society  itself. 

In  so  choral  an  age,  shall  the  poets  still  be  solitary 
pipers?  In  this  majestic  era  of  socialization,  shall 
we  alone  continue  to  represent  the  anarchic  order  of 
an  era  of  individualism? 

Or  if,  like  some  insects,  poets  be  hopelessly  cellular 
by  instinct,  must  we  gather  honey  only  as  the  hermit- 


INTRODUCTION 

wasps?  May  we  not,  like  the  bees,  decree  and  build 
our  "stately  pleasure-domes"? 

Here,  as  editor-host,  Mr.  Cook  may  assemble  us 
in  type :  but  to  attain  what  common  end,  to  build  what 
national  or  international  structure  of  imagination,  do 
these  collected  excerpts  of  our  work  contribute?  How 
are  they  related  to  one  another,  and  to  our  time  ? 

Once  a  year,  as  President  of  the  Poetry  Society,  Mr. 
Wheeler  may  assemble  us  in  person  for  the  pleasure 
and  inspiration  of  brief  reunions;  but  what  definite, 
creative  processes  of  art  tend  to  unite  and  focus  the 
work  of  our  Poetry  Society  members  in  a  common  up 
building  of  imaginative  life  for  America? 

Let  us  answer  frankly,  and  seek  some  solution  to 
our  answer. 

Unity,  harmony,  focus :  these  great  essentials  of  art 
are  lacking  to  our  national  poetry.  They  are,  how 
ever,  no  longer  wholly  lacking  to  our  national  life. 
The  war  has  immensely  stimulated  their  growth,  and 
in  that  growth  of  our  community  life  lies,  I  think, 
the  greatest  hope  for  our  poetry. 

Focus,  above  all:  for  focus  leads  directly  to  unity 
and  harmony. 

Through  what  definite,  creative  processes,  then,  may 
the  work  of  our  poets  be  focused? 

I  venture  an  answer — based  on  the  growing  per 
sonal  experience  of  a  decade:  through  the  definite, 
creative  processes  of  community  poetry — the  focaliz 
ing  craftsmanship  of  community  drama,  a  craft  po 
tentially  vast  in  its  variety. 


INTRODUCTION 

But  I  hear  the  quick  retort  of  a  poet  friend : — "My 
dear  MacKaye,  stick  to  your  subject.  You  are  writ 
ing  introductory  remarks  to  a  book  on  'Our  Poets 
of  Today' — not  our  dramatists,  nor  our  community 
architects.  I,  for  one,  am  simply  a  poet,  and  I  prefer 
to  stick  to  my  last.  That,  I  assure  you,  has  its  own 
infinite  variety.  As  to  entering  the  lists  of  community 
uplift — please  excuse  me." 

P.  M.:  Please  excuse  me.  I  express  myself  very 
blunderingly. 

Amiens:  Frankly,  you  do.  For  all  that,  I  gather 
your  meaning.  You  want  to  inveigle  me  from  my 
own  clear  task  and  metier — the  writing  of  verse — 
into  a  vague  maelstrom  of  fanfaring  trumpets,  be 
wildering  lights,  chaos  of  costumes,  enigmatical  actors, 
untangoing  dancers,  all  helplessly  entangled  in  fres 
cos  of  civic  reform;  pageantry,  in  short 

P.  M.:  An  apt  picture  of  a  popular  conception  of 
pageantry — and  some  pageants. 

Amicus:  Well,  you  should  know.  You  write  pa 
geants  yourself,  do  you  not? 

P.  M.:  No;  I  have  designed  some  works  involving 
pageantry.  Masques,  I  call  them,  for  want  of  a  bet 
ter  name.  Community  drama  is  perhaps  a  clearer 
designation  for  the  genus.  But,  of  course,  commun 
ity  drama  is  not  written  any  more  than  architecture  is 
written.  It  is  designed;  and  the  design  may  (and,  I 
think,  should)  involve  words — all  splendid  forms  of 
spoken,  sung  and  chanted  poetry — amongst  other  ele 
ments.  The  primum  mobile  is  imagination. 


INTRODUCTION 

Amicus:  All  that  may  be;  but  let  us  stick  to  our 
p's  and  q's  in  right  sequence:  Poetry  before  Quiddity! 
How  else  shall  chaos  be  classified?  Poetry  belongs 
to  literature,  and  literature  belongs  to  libraries — not 
to  theatres. 

P.  M.:  Libraries  must  have  card  catalogues;  ergo, 
the  human  soul  must  be  segmented — alphabetically. 
Or,  to  illustrate  further:  In  New  York  City  stand 
two  statues  of  actors :  one  of  Edwin  Booth,  the  other 
of  Shakespeare.  Query :  Shall  Shakespeare  be  card- 
catalogued  under  A  (Actors),  or  under  S  (Stat 
ues)  ? 

Arnica:  Under  P  (Poets),  of  course. 

P.  M.:  And  not  under  D  (Dramatists)  ? 

Amicus:  Well,  certainly  not  under  CD  (Commun 
ity  Dramatists).  No;  I  agree  with  Yeats,  that  "to 
articulate  sweet  sounds  together"  is  the  true  task  of 
the  poet,  difficult  and  sufficient  for  all  who  properly 
go  by  that  name. 

P.  M.:  I  am  happy  to  hear  you  quote  the  excellent 
poet,  who  is  the  luckiest  of  all  our  poets  of  today  in 
having  a  community  theatre  of  his  own  sort,  where 
he  personally  has  been  able  to  train  the  actors  "to 
articulate  sweet  sounds  together,"  and  to  cooperate 
on  occasion  with  the  excellent  designer  of  masques, 
Gordon  Craig. 

Those  words  of  his  were  also  quoted  by  me  in  an 
address  on  "The  Worker  in  Poetry,"  delivered  in 
1910,  before  the  National  Institute  and  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Letters,  and  it  will,  I  think,  bear  directly  on 


INTRODUCTION 

our  discussion  to  set  down  here  these  excerpts  from 
my  address  at  that  time: 

"Roughly  to  define  it,  I  mean  by  poetry — the  per 
ennial  stuff  of  the  racial  imagination.  Poets  are 
moulders  of  that  stuff  in  useful  forms.  And  by  use 
ful  forms  I  mean  forms  serviceable  to  the  happiness 
of  the  race. 

"Under  such  a  definition,  the  great  discoverers  of 
the  world — in  science,  art,  engineering,  medicine,  re 
ligion,  agriculture,  what  you  will — may  be  called  great 
poets;  and  such  they  are,  for  they  are  constructive 
imaginers,  or  inventors,  who  serve  the  race  by  their 
work.  But  a  special  class  of  these  has  usually  claimed 
the  name  of  poet;  to  wit,  writers  of  verse.  Obvi 
ously  that  special  class  is  our  subject,  but — not  to 
limit  this  class  by  any  misleading  distinction  between 
verse  and  prose — I  shall  mean  by  a  poet :  an  inventor 
of  useful  images  in  the  emotional  cadences  of  speech. 
In  brief,  a  singer  of  imagination.  Among  such,  of 
course,  singers  in  verse  are  dominant. 

"By  the  nature  of  his  work,  the  poet  seeks  to  stir 
the  elemental  in  man — the  racial  imagination.  This 
all  artists  seek,  more  or  less,  to  do.  But  the  singer 
must  accomplish  this  by  means  of  the  uttered  word. 
It  is  not  sufficient — it  is  not  even  essential — that  his 
poem  be  written.  To  fulfil  its  object  it  must  be 
spoken  or  sung.  It  is  as  reasonable  to  expect  an  archi 
tect  to  be  content  with  a  specification  of  his  building, 
or  a  painter  with  a  photogravure  of  his  painting,  as 
a  poet  with  the  printed  page  of  his  poem.  The  ca- 


INTRODUCTION 

dences,  the  harmonies,  the  seizure  by  the  imagination 
upon  consonants  and  vowels,  sounds  which  subtly 
evoke  the  human  associations  of  centuries — these  are 
addressed  to  the  ears,  not  to  the  eyes,  of  his  audience. 
Originally  his  audience  was  not  a  person,  but  a  peo 
ple.  Homer  sang  to  all  Hellas — not  from  the  printed 
page,  but  from  the  mouths  of  minstrels.  Thus  the 
very  craftsmanship  of  the  poet  is  based  upon  two  as 
sumptions,  which  are  seldom  granted  to  him  today: 
the  sung,  or  chanted,  word;  a  plural  convened  audi 
ence. 

"It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  his  power  with 
the  people  has  waned.  The  inspiration  of  the  ancient 
bards  has  never  passed  from  the  earth.  It  is  peren 
nial  in  the  poet's  heart.  But  it  can  never  pass  effec 
tively  into  the  hearts  of  the  people  through  their  eyes 
— from  the  pages  of  printed  volumes  or  of  magazines. 
No;  a  partial  renascence  of  those  older  conditions  of 
poetry  is  needed  for  the  work  of  the  poet.  Is  such  a 
renascence  feasible?  Is  it  probable? 

"Not  to  evoke  the  millennium  or  the  golden  age,  I 
think  the  worker  in  poetry  may  find  true  encourage 
ment  in  the  promise  of  the  present — and  the  present 
here  in  America.  Foremost  there  exists  for  him  one 
vocation  whose  object — like  his  own — is  to  evoke  the 
racial  imagination  by  the  uttered  word.  There  exists 
the  drama.  To  the  drama  the  noblest  poets  of  the 
past  have  turned  for  livelihood  and  the  fruition  of 
their  labor.  At  the  Globe  Theatre  in  London,  Shake 
speare  earned  both  daily  bread  and  immortality; 


INTRODUCTION 

Sophocles  both — at  the  theatre  in  Athens.  Today  in 
America  the  theatre — itself  but  half  aware — is  being 
stirred  by  mighty  forces  of  rebirth,  and  the  drama  is 
awakening  to  fresh  and  splendid  horizons.  For  the 
poet,  then,  in  verse  or  prose,  the  craftsmanship  of  the 
dramatist  already  offers  an  actual  vocation. 

"Besides  this,  a  revived  form  of  democratic  drama 
outside  the  theatre  is  rapidly  developing  new  oppor 
tunities  for  the  singer.  The  pageant  has  come  to 
stay.  Participated  in  by  the  people,  from  town  to 
town,  the  civic  pageant  is  being  welcomed  as  a  con 
structive  form  of  expression  for  our  national  and 
local  holidays.  For  this — Memorial  Day,  Fourth  of 
July,  Labor  Day,  Columbus  Day,  Thanksgiving, 
Christmas,  Lincoln's  and  Washington's  birthdays,  pre 
sent  magnificent  opportunities  for  the  noblest  imag 
inings  of  poets  and  artists.  In  particular  these  fes 
tivals  give  promise  of  vocation  to  the  poet  as  such 
in  the  revival  and  growth  of  the  masque,  the  ballad 
•md  the  choral  song" 

During  the  eight  years  which  have  passed  since 
those  words  were  spoken,  personal  experience  has 
deepened  a  strong  conviction  then  to  a  sense  of  cer 
tainty  now.  For  in  numerous  productions  of  my 
masques  in  different  parts  of  America — productions 
witnessed  by  an  approximate  total  of  a  million  spec 
tators,  and  enacted  by  some  fifteen  thousand  partici 
pants — the  popular  zest  for  forms  of  community 
poetry,  the  quick  comprehension  of  broad,  symbolic 
concepts,  the  eager  enthusiasm  and  discipline  of  ex- 


INTRODUCTION 

pression  through  rhythmic  speech  and  song,  through 
light  and  choral  movement — these  have  presented  in 
spiring  proofs  that  a  communal  expression  of  poetry, 
comparable  to  the  noblest  of  any  age,  awaits  only  the 
focalized  initiative  of  our  poets — these  very  poets  of 
our  today  represented  in  this  volume — to  release 
their  own  deepest  powers  and  interpret  America  fun 
damentally  to  itself  and  the  world. 

In  this  I  would  not  be  understood  as  implying  that 
such  communal  forms  of  poetic  expression  would  nec 
essarily  bear  any  close  resemblance  to  my  own  designs 
here  referred  to,  nor  would  I  be  construed  as  urging 
that  poets — in  dedicating  their  gifts  to  the  creation  of 
community  art — should  yoke  their  individual  insights 
and  methods  in  art  to  any  superimposed  organization 
of  a  bureaucratic  regime.  Such  implications  have  no 
part  in  what  I  see  potential  in  this  volume. 

What  I  see  here  potential  is  simply  an  extension, 
toward  a  focal  centre,  of  those  distinct  individual 
gifts  of  our  poets  now  isolated  and  uncorrelated.  That 
focal  centre  I  see  as  the  Drama,  because  only  the 
drama  focuses  and  synthesizes  all  forms  of  poetry  in 
its  largest  meaning  as  art,  and  only  community  drama 
completely  fuses  that  art  with  democracy,  which  in 
creasingly  is  our  life  in  common. 

Today,  the  roulette-table  which  is  our  theatre  cre 
ates,  of  course,  no  demand  for  the  dramatic  crafts 
manship  of  poets.  The  theatre  does  not  call  the  poets. 
Well,  then ;  let  the  poets  call  the  theatre,  and  re-create 
it  for  themselves,  as  artist-spokesmen  of  the  people. 


INTRODUCTION 

For,  after  all,  the  community  theatre  of  our  new 
age — if  its  art  is  to  be  commensurate  with  the  age — 
can  be  invoked  only  by  our  poets,  and  by  the  best  of 
our  poets.  Despite  the  appeal  of  motion  pictures  (an 
appeal  two-thirds  economic),  and  of  theatre-art  pro 
ductions  purely  visual,  the  drama  of  expression  can 
never  be  divorced  from  speech,  nor  dramatic  speech 
from  rhythmic  utterance — which  is  the  realm  of  the 
poets'  supremacy. 

The  content  of  this  book,  then,  though  it  will  gen 
erally  be  classed  as  literature  for  libraries  and  read 
ers,  is  for  me  a  lyric  sign  and  assurance  of  a  new  lit 
erature  for  audiences,  for  whom  these  lyrists  are  even 
now  potential  dramatists  of  a  new  theatre. 

Least  of  all  among  these,  perhaps,  Miss  Lowell 
would  admit  such  an  implication  for  herself,  espe 
cially  in  a  "community"  capacity.  Yet  I  am  temerari 
ous  enough  to  detect  in  the  vivid  and  mordant  etch 
ings  of  her  art,  in  the  swift  flashing  and  darkling  of 
dramatic  images  silhouetted  on  the  mind  of  the  soli 
tary  reader,  most  of  all,  in  the  abundance  of  jettying 
life-force  which  irradiates  her  word-sounds  with  color- 
beams — to  detect,  behind  these,  a  maker  of  masques, 
in  kind  all  her  own,  that  might  well  conjure  strange, 
alluring  patterns  for  audiences,  convened  from  a  com 
munity — not  too  numerical  to  be  annoying. 

And  when  may  not  Masters,  with  some  unprece 
dented  theatre  technique,  chisel  new  lives  of  his  en 
tombed — or  Frost  convene  the  lonely  folk  of  his  back- 
country  regions  in  strange,  touching  festivals — that 


INTRODUCTION 

call  for  fresh  incarnations  of  the  trade-worn  actor? 

Many,  perhaps  most,  of  the  poets  here  represented 
by  lyric  works  have  expressed  themselves  in  forms 
dramatic.  Some  of  these,  while  yet  unpublished,  I 
have  at  times  been  privileged  to  hear  read  aloud  by 
their  authors  to  intimate  gatherings  of  friends.  In 
such  personal  readings  aloud,  and  the  exchange  of 
ideas  in  conversation  which  naturally  follows  upon 
them,  the  potentiality  of  the  poets  and  their  works  is 
far  better  revealed  than  in  perusing  their  published 
volumes.  So — as  that  potentiality  is  my  subject — 
though  the  dramatic  works  of  many  otners  are  doubt 
less  as  varied  and  significant,  I  can  only  mention  here 
from  direct  knowledge  those  whom  I  have  been  so 
lucky  as  to  hear  read  their  plays  in  manuscript,  still 
fresh  from  the  creative  impulses  of  their  minds. 

The  blithe-deep  genius  of  Witter  Bynner  has  lately 
sung  its  soul  in  a  play  of  today  and  tomorrow,  and 
soon,  where  he  has  betaken  him  to  the  Greek  Theatre 
at  Berkeley,  California,  it  will  be  strange  if  we  are  not 
to  hear  of  happy  collaborations  there  with  the  scenic 
fantasy  of  Sam  Hume. 

William  Vaughn  Moody,  the  beauty  of  whose 
masques,  unstaged  in  his  lifetime,  still  awaits  the  sym 
pathetic  producer;  Robinson,  whose  prose  plays  of 
caustic  soul-portraiture  call  for  the  advent  of  a  rep 
ertory  theatre  of  ideas ;  Torrence,  who  has  dramatized 
the  lyric  heart  of  the  negro  race  and — in  conjunction 
with  Robert  Edmond  Jones  and  Emilie  Hapgood,  as 
producers — has  already  accomplished  a  native  pioneer- 


INTRODUCTION 

ing  as  important  for  America  as  Synge's  for  Ireland; 
Josephine  Peabody,  whose  "Wolf  of  Gubbio"  deserves 
as  fine  recognition  as  her  Stratford  prize,  "The 
Piper" ;  Olive  Dargan,  author  of  a  noble  repertory  of 
plays  in  verse  and  prose,  all  too  little  known  as  yet 
for  the  deep  surging  of  a  social  imagination  certain 
ere  long  to  be  acclaimed  through  such  works  as  her 
prose  play,  "The  Shepherd";  Louis  Ledoux,  gracious 
and  lyric-serene  even  in  the  swift  passion  of  his  "Yz- 
dra" ;  listening,  as  I  have,  to  the  dramas  of  these  poet 
friends,  read  aloud  by  quiet  firesides,  the  fecundity 
and  varied  scope  of  American  poetry  has  held  for  me 
more  than  the  rich  promise  of  a  drama  to  be  attained ; 
it  is  already — though  unfocused  and  scant-recognized 
— an  assured  achievement. 

All  these  poets  have  written  significant  drama  of 
today;  yet  perhaps  only  one  among  them  is  deliber 
ately,  and  with  life-long  conviction,  singing  his  foot 
path  way  toward  that  people's  common  of  art,  which 
shall  focus  our  life  and  drama  of  tomorrow.  Indi 
vidual  as  his  peculiar  utterance  is  in  song,  Vachel 
Lindsay  is  a  maker  of  communal  poetry.  Though  I 
have  never  heard  a  poem  of  his  in  usual  dramatic  dia 
logue,  I  have  never  heard  one  of  his  that  is  undra- 
matic;  and  his  most  recent  experiments  with  Miss 
Eleanor  Dougherty,  in  coordinating  his  chanted 
poetry  with  the  dance,  are,  I  think,  immensely  sig 
nificant  in  promise  for  the  future  collaboration  of  poets 
and  dancers  in  the  drama.  Some  related  experiments 
I  have  tested,  for  some  time  past,  in  my  own  work, 


INTRODUCTION 

particularly  in  "Caliban,"  as  performed  at  the  Har 
vard  Stadium. 

Though  he  may  himself  only  half  realize  it,  Lindsay 
has  set  out  for  the  goal  of  a  new  theatre,  and  I  would 
wager  with  him  that  if  ever,  on  his  footpath  way,  he 
falls  in  step  with  the  spirit  of  Bobby  Jones,  the  vil 
lage  common  where  they  arrive  arm  in  arm  will  blos 
som  suddenly  with  such  native  bloom  of  rhythmic 
sound  and  color  as  only  the  hearts  of  such  lyric  spir 
its  of  America  can  conceive. 

Here,  then,  Mr.  Editor,  I  submit  to  your  courtesy 
these  informal  queries  and  forecastings.  Perhaps  they 
may  serve  to  suggest  that  poets  and  dramatists  (out 
side  of  the  catalogues)  are  not  really  different  species 
of  Man;  that  their  art  has  one  deep  source  in  com 
mon — the  well  springs  of  community  life. 

The  Players,  New  York, 
17  November,  1918. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I  PAGE 

Amy  Lowell      .     .     .     .  -   ........         i 

CHAPTER  n 
Sara  Teasdale 12 

CHAPTER  in 
Witter  Bynner 19 

CHAPTER  IV 

Robert  Frost 30 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 34 

CHAPTER  V 

Percy  MacKaye 41 

CHAPTER  VI 

Edgar  Lee  Masters 49 

CHAPTER  VH 

Vachel  Lindsay  56 

CHAPTER  vrn 

Henry  van  Dyke 65 

Edwin  Markham 68 

Cole  Young  Rice 73 

Conrad  Aiken 80 

CHAPTER  DC 

Robert  Service 83 

John  McCrae 88 

Jesse  Edgar  Middleton 90 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  X  PAGE 

Joyce  Kilmer 94 

Alan  Seeger 99 

Charles  Divine 103 

John  McClure .no 

CHAPTER  XI 

Charles  Wharton  Stork 1 16 

George  Sterling 119 

Louis  Untermeyer 121 

John  Gould  Fletcher 122 

John  Hall  Wheelock 125 

CHAPTER  XH 

Carl  Sandburg 129 

Frederick  Mortimer  Clapp 135 

Donald  Evans 136 

Ezra  Pound 139 

Benjamin  De  Casseres 142 

Roy  Helton 143 

CHAPTER  xm 

Katherine  Lee  Bates 146 

Harriet  Monroe 149 

Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse 150 

Sarah  Cleghorn 153 

Alice  Brown 158 

Anna  Hempstead  Branch 160 

Josephine  Preston  Peabody      . ' 161 

Olive  Tilford  Dargan .162 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XIV  PAGE 

Christopher  Morley 164 

Edgar  Guest 167 

Berton  Braley 172 

Thomas  A.  Daly 173 

Anthony  Euwer 177 

Charles  Hanson  Towne 178 

John  Curtis  Underwood 180 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox .     .  181 

Arthur  Guiterman 184 

CHAPTER  xv 

Margaret  Widdemer .     .  '  .  186 

Eunice  Tietjens 188 

Clement  Wood 189 

Hermann  Hagedorn 190 

Francis  Carlin .     .  191 

Ridgely  Torrence 193 

Harry  Kemp 194 

CHAPTER    XVI 

William  Stanley  Braitkivaite 197 

Thomas  Walsh 198 

Wittard  Wattles 199 

Bliss  Carman 201 

Sherwood  Anderson 202 

CHAPTER  XVH 

Florence  Earle  Coates 204 

Amelia  Josephine  Burr 206 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay 207 

Lizette  Woodsworth  Reese 209 

Benjamin  R.  C.  Low 210 

Harold  Cook 212 

CHAPTER  xvm 

Louis  V.  Ledoux 214 

John  G.  Neihardt 215 

George  Edward  Woodberry        216 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

CHAPTER  I 
Amy  Lowell 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  define  poetry  for 
the  layman.  Some  have  sought  to  set  it  down  as  fig 
ures  of  speech  or  metric  measures;  others,  a  vague 
groping  among  soft  sounding  words  for  spiritual  ex 
pressions  reserved  for  a  selected  few. 

In  a  contest  of  the  Poetry  Society  (New  York)  a 
prize  was  awarded  for  the  best  definition  of  poetry  to 
Annie  L.  Laney,  who  describes  it: 

The  magic  light  that  springs 
From  the  deep  soul  of  things 
When,  called  by  their  true  names, 
Their  essence  is  set  free; 
The  word,  illuminate, 
Showing  the  soul's  estate, 
Baring  the  hearts  of  men ; 
Poetry! 

Henry  T.  Schnittkind  says : 

"Our  human  minds  are  like  so  many  imperfect  and 
distorted  mirrors  in  which  the  one  is  reflected  in  a 
million  apparently  irreconcilable  variations.  Now  and 


2  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

then,  however,  the  mist  lifts  for  the  fraction  of  a  sec 
ond  before  a  small  part  of  the  mirror  of  our  minds, 
and  a  poem  is  born.  Then  we  realize  that  the  color 
of  the  dying  leaf  is  one  and  the  same  with  the  tint  of 
the  setting  sun,  that  the  rippling  laughter  of  a  child 
is  not  only  akin  to,  but  is  the  ripple  of  the  fountain. 
The  soft  syllable  of  a  mother's  lullaby  and  the  notes 
that  fall  like  blossoms  from  the  flute-player's  lips  are 
but  different  cadences  of  the  self-same  voice  of  God. 
The  reason  why  an  apt  figure  of  speech  thrills  us  so 
strangely  is  because  the  poet,  by  means  of  this  figure 
of  speech,  stretches  an  invisible  thread  of  gold  between 
our  hearts  and  the  heart  of  God.  Every  poem  that 
does  this,  however  imperfectly,  is  to  me  a  true  poem 
and  a  great  poet." 

In  the  author's  school  days  he  was  taught  that 
poetry  was  truth,  beauty,  and  music — and  facing  these 
various  requirements  comes  Amy  Lowell  with  a  brand 
of  poetry  that  has  caused  more  comment  of  attack  and 
defense,  praising  and  condemning  criticism,  than  that 
meted  out  to  any  American  poet  of  recent  years. 

Amy  Lowell  is  regarded  as  the  chief  American 
propagandist  of  our  so  called  vers  libre.  It  was  with 
the  publication  of  her  first  book,  "A  Dome  of  Many 
Coloured  Glass,"  that  there  was  born  the  forerunner 
of  our  free  verse  poems,  and  from  which  many  mad 
dening  verse  makers  were  to  fashion  even  madder 
verses.  When  this  first  free  verse  poem  was  written 
"Imagism"  was  an  unheard  of  word  and  vers  libre 
had  yet  to  become  a  factor  of  dispute  for  the  orthodox 
and  the  new  school  of  poets. 

And  one  of  the  most  important  figures  in  our  poetry 


making  of  today  is  Miss  Lowell,  with  her  two-fold 
vocation  of  poet  and  critic.  While  she  has  willingly 
or  otherwise  obtained  for  herself  a  super-radical  sort 
of  reputation,  her  work  fulfills  the  fundamentals  or 
ideals  laid  down  for  poetry  in  its  true  sense.  She  has 
given  New  England  and  the  remainder  of  our  coun 
try  a  succession  of  jolts  but  "it  is  (to  quote  from  Miss 
Lowell  herself)  an  interesting  commentary  on  the  easy 
scorn  with  which  non-New  Englanders  regard  New 
England  that  two  of  the  six  poets  (whom  she  dis 
cusses  as  the  most  significant  of  the  day)  should  be  of 
the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  New  England."  These 
two  are  Frost  and  Robinson.  The  third,  whom  Miss 
Lowell  modestly  refrains  from  mentioning,  is  herself. 

Amy  Lowell  was  born  in  Brookline,  Mass.,  on  Feb 
ruary  9,  1874,  and  was  educated  in  the  private  schools 
of  her  native  state. 

No  biographical  presentation  of  her  would  be  com 
plete  without  including  the  statement  that  her  geneo- 
logical  tree  presents  the  names  of  James  Russell 
Lowell,  the  poet,  who  was  a  cousin  of  Miss  Lowell's 
grandfather,  Professor  Percival  Lowell,  a  writer  of 
note,  and  President  Lawrence  Lowell  of  Harvard 
University. 

Although  at  the  age  of  thirteen  years  Miss  Lowell 
displayed  some  ability  at  verse  making,  she  spent  most 
of  her  time  in  out-of-door  sports,  caring  for  the  ani 
mals  upon  her  father's  great  flower-covered  estates 
and  reading  from  the  large  collection  of  books  that 
filled  the  family  library.  Richard  Hunt  in  a  biographi 
cal  resume  of  Miss  Lowell  expresses  this  childhood 
influence  of  gardens  and  flowers  upon  her  as  follows: 


4  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"There  have  been  many  kinds  of  nature  poets,  but 
none  exactly  like  Miss  Lowell.  She  is  the  poet  of  that 
nature  which  is  the  product  of  landscape  gardening 
and  architecture.  As  we  go  through  her  pages  we  find 
ourselves  in  old  secluded  gardens  where  fountains  play 
into  cool  basins,  paths  wind  among  statues  and  flow 
ering  shrubbery,  and  marble  steps  lead  to  shady  gar 
den  seats.  Her  poems  are  sweet-scented  with  nar 
cissus." 

Is  it  not  this  flower-love  which  we  see  in  full  fruit 
in  that  most  colorful  and  remarkable  poem  called 
"Patterns"  ? 

I  walk  down  the  garden  paths, 

And  all  the  daffodils 

Are  blowing,  and  the  bright  blue  squills. 

I  walk  down  the  patterned  garden  paths 

In  my  stiff,  brocaded  gown. 

With  my  powdered  hair  and  jewelled  fan, 

I  too  am  a  rare 

Pattern.     As  I  wander  down 

The  garden  paths. 

My  dress  is  richly  figured, 

And  the  train 

Makes  a  pink  and  silver  stain 

On  the  gravel,  and  the  thrift 

Of  the  borders. 

Just  a  plate  of  current  fashion, 

Tripping  by  in  high-heeled,  ribboned  shoes. 

Not  a  softness  anywhere  about  me, 

Only  a  whale-bone  and  brocade. 

The  daffodils  and  squills 

Flutter  in  the  breeze 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  5 

As  they  please. 

And  I  weep; 

For  the  lime  tree  is  in  blossom 

And  one  small  flower  has  dropped  upon  my  bosom. 

Underneath  my  stiffened  gown 

Is  the  softness  of  a  woman  bathing  in  a  marble 

basin, 

A  basin  in  the  midst  of  hedges  grown 
So  thick,  she  cannot  see  her  lover  hiding, 
But  she  guesses  he  is  near, 

I  would  be  the  pink  and  silver  as  I  ran  along 

the  paths, 

And  he  would  stumble  after, 
Bewildered  by  my  laughter. 
I  should  see  the  sun  flashing  from  his  sword  hilt 

and  the  buckles  on  his  shoes. 
I  would  choose 

To  lead  him  in  a  maze  along  the  patterned  paths. 
A  bright  and  laughing  maze  for  my  heavy  booted 

lover, 

Till  he  caught  me  in  the  shade, 
And  the  buttons  of  his  waistcoat  bruised  my  body 

as  he  clasped  me, 
Aching,  melting,  unafraid. 

Underneath  the  fallen  blossoms 

In  my  bosom, 

Is  a  letter  I  have  hid. 

It  was  brought  to  me  this  morning  by  a  rider  from 

the  Duke. 
"Madam,   we   regret  to  inform   you  that   Lord 

Hartwell 
Died  in  action  Thursday  sen'night." 


6  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

As  I  read  it  in  the  white,  morning  sunlight, 
The  letters  squirmed  like  snakes. 
"Any  answer,  Madam?"  said  my  footman. 
"No,"  I  told  him. 

In  Summer  and  in  Winter  I  shall  walk 

Up  and  down 

The  patterned  garden  paths 

In  my  stiff,  brocaded  gown. 

The  squills  and  daffodils 

Will  give  place  to .  pillared  roses,  and  to  asters, 

and  to  snow. 
I  shall  go 
Up  and  down, 
In  my  gown. 
Gorgeously  arrayed, 
Boned  and  stayed. 
And  the  softness  of  my  body  will  be  guarded 

from  embrace 

By  each  button,  hook,  and  lace. 
For  the  man  who  should  loose  me  is  dead, 
Fighting  with  the  Duke  in  Flanders, 
In  a  pattern  called  a  war. 
Christ!    What  are  the  patterns  for? 

(The  Little  Review) 

Miss  Lowell  lived  abroad  for  many  years  upon  the 
completion  of  her  school  life,  but  it  was  not  until 
1902,  upon  her  return  to  the  family  homestead  in 
Brookline,  that  she  began  to  seriously  study  the  tech 
nique  of  poetry.  Then  followed  eight  years  of  prep 
aration,  described  by  Mr.  Hunt  as  "a  solitary  and 
faithful  apprenticeship,  reading  the  masters,  learning 
the  technique  of  poetry,  and  developing  her  genius  by 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  7 

constant  exercise.  It  was  a  discouraging  struggle,  for 
she  was  her  only  critic,  but  to  this  fact  is  undoubtedly 
due  much  of  her  individuality  and  excellence." 

Miss  Lowell's  first  published  poem  appeared  in  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,  and  in  1912,  "A  Dome  of  Many- 
Coloured  Glass"  was  issued.  "Sword  Blades  and 
Poppy  Seed"  followed  in  the  spring  of  1913,  and  here 
was  demonstrated  the  natural  growth  of  the  tendencies 
shown  in  the  first  volume  for  free  verse,  together  with 
sonnets,  pictorial  pieces  and  lyrics ;  long  narratives,  bits 
of  imagery  and  our  earliest  specimens  of  "polyphonic 
prose." 

Critical  essays  came  with  the  publication  of  "Six 
French  Poets,"  an  authoritative  volume  and  one  of  the 
finest  pieces  of  writing  that  we  have  on  French  poetry. 

"Men,  Women  and  Ghosts"  followed  in  1916,  de 
veloping  more  strongly  but  with  the  same  fineness  and 
sureness  of  the  master  poet,  polyphonic  prose.  The 
fifth  book  to  come  from  Miss  Lowell's  pen,  "Ten 
dencies  in  Modern  American  Poetry,"  is  an  expression 
of  her  ideas  in  separating  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  in 
our  modern  American  poetry.  This  was  published  in 
October,  1917.  "Can  Grande's.  Castle,"  impressively 
beautiful,  was  published  early  in  the  fall  of  1918. 

Amy  Lowell  writes  with  a  vigorous  hand,  simple 
in  style,  but  with  potent  meaning.  In  the  following 
lines  from  "A  Bather"  something  may  be  judged  of 
her  ability  as  a  chooser  of  words,  of  a  talent  for  ap 
peal  to  the  senses  in  poetry  that  has  few  equals : 

Thick  dappled  by  circles  of  sunshine  and  fluttering  shade, 
Your  bright,  naked  body  advances,  blown  over  by  leaves, 


8  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Half -quenched  in  their  various  green,  just  a  point  of 

you  showing, 
A    knee   or   a   thigh,    sudden   glimpsed,    then    at   once 

blotted  into 

The  filmy  and  flickering  forest,  to  start  out  again 
Triumphant  in  smooth,  supple  roundness,  edged  sharp 

as  white  ivory, 
Cool,  perfect,   with  rose  rarely  tinting  your  lips  and 

your  breasts, 
Swelling  out  from  the  green  in  the  opulent  curves  of 

ripe  fruit, 
And  hidden,  like  fruit,  by  the  swift  intermittence  of 

leaves. 
So,  clinging  to  branches  and  moss,  you  advance  on  the 

ledges 

Of  rock  which  hang  over  the  stream,  with  the  wood- 
smells  about  you, 
The  pungence  of  strawberry  plants  and  of  gum-oozing 

spruces, 
While  below   runs   the  water  impatient,   impatient — to 

take  you, 
To  splash  you,  to  run  down  your  sides,  to  sing  you 

of  deepness, 
Of  pools  brown  and  golden,  with  brown-and-gold  flags 

on  their  borders. 
Of   blue,   lingering   skies   floating   solemnly  over  your 

beauty, 

Of  undulant  waters  a-sway  in  the  effort  to  hold  you, 
To  keep  you  submerged  and  quiescent  while  over  you 

glories  * 
The  summer. 

Oread,  Dryad,  or  Naiad,  or  just 
Woman,  clad  only  in  youth  and  in  gallant  perfection, 
Standing  up  in  a  great  burst  of  sunshine,  you  dazzle 

my  eyes 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  9 

Like  a  snow-star,  a  moon,  your  effulgence  burns  up  in 

a  halo, 

For  you  are  the  chalice  which  holds  all  the  races  of  men, 
You  slip  into  the  pool  and  the  water  folds  over  your 

shoulder, 
And  over  the  tree-tops  the  clouds  slowly  follow  your 

swimming, 
And  the  scent  of  the  woods  is  sweet  on  this  hot  summer 

morning. 

(Harpers  Magazine) 

There  is  a  line  of  years  between  "Patterns"  and 
"Dreams  in  War  Time"  published  in  The  Little  Re 
view,  and  in  this  latter  is  shown  the  war's  reaction 
upon  Miss  Lowell's  writing — be  they  reactions  of  good 
or  evil  growth : 

I. 

I  wandered  through  a  house  of  many  rooms. 
It  grew  darker  and  darker, 
Until,  at  last,  I  could  only  find  my  way 
By  passing  my  fingers  along  the  wall. 
Suddenly  my  hand  shot  through  an  open  window, 
And  the  thorn  of  a  rose  I  could  not  see 
Pricked  it  so  sharply 
That  I  cried  aloud. 

II. 

I  dug  a  grave  under  an  oak  tree. 

With  infinite  care,  I  stamped  my  spade 

Into  the  heavy  grass. 

The  sod  sucked  it, 

And  I  drew  it  out  with  effort, 

Watching  the  steel  run  liquid  in  the  moonlight 

As  it  came  clear. 


io  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

I  stooped,  and  dug,  and  never  turned, 

For  behind  me, 

On  the  dried  leaves, 

My  own  face  lay  like  a  white  pebble, 

Waiting. 

But  while  Miss  Lowell  has  achieved  much  herself 
in  the  war  of  vers  libre,  there  has  grown  up  in  her 
trail  in  that  great  wave  of  pseudo  vers  libre,  such  imi 
tators  as  these  misnomered  poets,  samples  of  whose 
work  appeared  in  the  same  number  of  The  Little  Re 
view  as  Miss  Lowell's  own  "Dreams  in  War  Times." 

DEPRESSION   BEFORE   SPRING 

The  cock  crows 
But  no  queen  rises. 

The  hair  of  my  blonde 
Is  dazzling, 

As  the  spittle  of  cows, 
Threading  the  wind. 

Ho!    Ho! 

But  ki-ki-ri-ki 
Brings  no  rou-cou, 
No  rou-cou-cou. 

But  no  queen  comes 
In  slipper  green. 

SHE  GOES  TO  PISA 

Sh«  has  rounded  her  shoulders 
To  the  curve  of  his  arm 
And  walked  with  him  slowly. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  II 

She  has  walked  with  him 
Slowly ; 

Granite  procession, 
White  gesture  of  stars. 

It  is  for  these  things  that  writers  of  free  verse  must 
blush! 

In  England  Miss  Lowell  also  had  gained  a  large 
audience  and  a  48-page  pamphlet  by  Miss  Winifred 
Bryher,  published  in  London,  pays  tribute  to  her  as 
"an  explorer  .  .  .  offering  of  her  own  vision  to  un 
observant  eyes  the  breaking  of  innumerable  barriers." 

This  English  critic  in  commenting  upon  Miss 
Lowell's  artistic  progress  says :  "Development  is  ever 
of  essential  interest  to  me,  but  it  is  seldom  growth  in 
a  writer's  mind,  outlook,  can  be  traced  in  such  detail 
and  astounding  measure,  as  in  Miss  Lowell's  books. 
.  .  .  But  though  the  fibres  are  visible  from  which 
imagism  is  to  blossom,  definite  touch  of  it  is  absent, 
or  hovers  a  line  or  two,  fearful  of  alighting.  This 
was  in  1912.  In  1914  the  first  'Antholgie  des 
Imagistes'  was  printed,  in  which  Miss  Lowell  is  poorly 
represented  by  a  single  cadence,  as  idiomatic  of  her 
speech  as  anything  she  has  written,  and  the  earliest 
poem  (according  to  accessible  dates)  of  that  region, 
so  instinct  with  dreamed  reality  it  is  more  vivid  than 
an  actual  world,  Miss  Lowell's  own  province,  in  which 
we  are  admitted  to  the  daily  company  of  loveliness, 
through  the  magic  of  her  phrase.  'With  Sword  Blades 
and  Poppy  Seed,'  published  two  months  later,  we  are 
in  the  full  maturity  of  imagist  expression." 


CHAPTER  II 
Sara  Teasdale 

For  the  first  time  in  its  history,  Columbia  Univer 
sity,  in  the  spring  of  1918,  awarded  a  prize  of  $500 
for  a  book  of  poetry,  to  Sara  Teasdale,  for  her  volume 
of  "Love  Songs"  published  in  the  fall  of  1917 — poems 
of  true  lyric  quality  that  have  won  for  their  creator 
such  a  high  place  among  American  poets. 

Altho  one  of  the  younger  of  our  American  writers, 
and  almost  the  direct  antithesis  in  poetry  style  from 
Amy  Lowell,  Sara  Teasdale  is  a  favorite  throughout 
the  United  States,  and  a  number  of  her  poems  have 
been  translated  into  French,  Spanish,  Danish,  and 
other  languages. 

The  beauty  that  charms  at  the  very  start  the  lover 
of  exquisite  verse  is  found  in  the  opening  stanzas  of 
"Barter"  which  begins  Miss  Teasdale's  "Love  Songs" : 

Life  has  loveliness  to  sell 
All  beautiful  and  splendid  things, 

Blue  waves  whitened  on  a  cliff, 
Soaring  fire  that  sways  and  sings, 

And  children's  faces  looking  up 

Holding  wonder  like  a  cup. 

Life  has  loveliness  to  sell, 
Music  like  a  curve  of  gold, 

12 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  13 

Scent  of  pine  trees  in  the  rain, 

Eyes  that  love  you,  arms  that  hold, 
And  for  your  spirit's  still  delight, 
Holy  thoughts  that  star  the  night. 

Sara  Teasdale  was  born  in  St.  Louis,  August  8, 
1884,  and  was  educated  in  private  schools  in  her  home 
city.  In  1903  she  was  graduated  from  Hosmer  Hall 
and  soon  after  left  her  St.  Louis  home  for  Southern 
Europe  and  Egypt.  Greece  and  Italy  furnished  in 
spiration  for  many  of  her  earlier  poems.  In  1907 
her  first  book,  "Sonnets  to  Duse,"  was  published.  On 
its  appearance  a  copy  fell  into  the  hands  of  Arthur 
Symons,  the  famous  English  critic  and  poet,  who 
praised  the  unconscious  technique  of  her  writing.  Her 
first  poem  to  achieve  wide  recognition  was  a  mono 
logue,  done  in  blank  verse,  "Guinevere,"  which  ap 
peared  in  Reedy's  Mirror.  Other  monologues  in  the 
same  style  followed,  each  offering  a  fresh  aspect  of 
some  famous  woman  in  history  or  art,  including 
"Beatrice"  and  "Helen  of  Troy."  The  latter,  after 
being  published  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  became  the 
title  of  her  second  volume  of  poems,  published  by  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons  in  1911. 

To  Miss  Teasdale's  second  journey  abroad  we  are 
indebted  for  such  songs  as  "Off  Capri"  and  "Night 
Song  at  Amalfi" : 

I  asked  the  heaven  of  stars 
What  I  should  give  my  love — 

It  answered  me  with  siknce, 
Silence  above. 


14 

I  asked  the  darkened  sea 
Down  where  the  fishers  go — 

It  answered  me  with  silence, 
Silence  below. 

There  is  something  akin  in  the  work  of  Sara  Teas- 
dale  and  the  "Grenstone  Poems"  of  Witter  Bynner, 
and  it  is  of  interest  to  read  Mr.  Bynner's  own  picture 
of  his  contemporary  which  he  makes  the  subject  of  a 
poem: 

O  there  were  lights  and  laughter 

And  the  motions  to  and  fro 
Of  people  as  they  enter 

And  people  as  they  go.  .  .  . 

O  there  were  many  voices 

Vying  at  the  feast, 
But  mostly  I  remember 

Yours — who  spoke  the  least. 

Sara  Teasdale's  belief  in  our  own  American  poetry 
is  well  founded. 

"A  fairly  wide  acquaintance  with  the  contemporary 
poetry  of  England,"  she  says,  "makes  me  sure  that 
we  are  nearer  than  they  are  to  producing  great  work. 
Aside  from  Masefield,  we  have  men  with  stronger 
vision  and  more  original  method  than  they. 

"As  to  my  own  work,  I  feel  that  the  best  of  it  is 
done  in  brief,  exceedingly  simple  poems.  I  try  to  say 
what  moves  me — I  never  care  to  surprise  my  reader; 
and  I  avoid,  not  from  malice  aforethought,  but  sim 
ply  because  I  dislike  them,  all  words  that  are  not  met 
with  in  common  speech,  and  all  inversions  of  word  or 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  15 

phrases.  My  poems  aren't  written,  in  the  literal  sense 
of  that  word.  They  sometimes  never  meet  pen  and 
paper  until  they  have  been  complete  for  days  in  my 
mind.  Perhaps  this  habit  of  composition  is  partly 
responsible  for  the  fact  that  I  never  use  intricate 
stanzas — it  would  be  too  hard  to  compose  them  in 
my  usual  way.  For  me  one  of  the  greatest  joys  of 
poetry  is  to  know  it  by  heart — perhaps  that  is  why 
the  simple  song-like  poems  appeal  to  me  most — they 
are  the  easiest  to  learn.  And  so  I  should  place  Chris 
tine  Rossetti  above  her  brother,  as  a  poet,  and  perhaps 
also  above  the  more  opulent  Mrs.  Browning." 

Sara  Teasdale  is  a  resident  of  New  York  City.  She 
was  married  in  December,  1914,  in  St.  Louis  to  Mr. 
E.  B.  Filsinger,  an  authority  on  international  trade, 
on  which  subject  he  has  written  a  number  of  books. 

Aside  from  the  love  lyrics  contained  in  Miss  Teas- 
dale's  prize  winning  volume,  it  also  includes  a  group 
of  poems,  "Songs  Out  of  Sorrow,"  which  were  voted 
to  be  the  best  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  Poetry  Society 
of  America  during  the  year  1916-17.  As  a  proof  of 
a  poet's  ability  to  write  a  popular  selling  book  witness 
"Love  Songs."  This  was  a  volume  that  met  with  in 
stant  popularity  as  well  as  artistic  success.  It  was 
printed  in  several  editions,  the  second  edition  becoming 
necessary  before  the  book  was  three  weeks  off  the 
press. 

"Rivers  to  the  Sea,"  "Helen  of  Troy"  and  "Love 
Songs"  come  nearest  to  meeting  our  best  standards  for 
perfect  poetry.  Here  are  the  cadences  of  pure  lyric 
and  the  simple  language  that  this  poet  chooses  so  ably 
to  express  herself. 


16  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Here  is  a  poet  who  expresses  the  extremes  of  human 
emotion  in  poems  that  are  simple  and  short.  Many  of 
them  have  only  eight  lines,  but  the  quality  of  person 
ality  is  strong  and  rich  in  music  with  a  combination 
of  tenderness  and  spontaneity. 

William  Marion  Reedy  finds  "Rivers  to  the  Sea" 
the  best  book  of  pure  lyrics  that  has  appeared  in  Eng 
lish  since  A.  H.  Housman's  "A  Shropshire  Lad." 

The  Boston  Transcript  declares  that  Sara  Teasdale 
sings  about  love  better  than  any  other  contemporary 
American  poet,  and  William  Stanley  Braithwaite  in 
the  Year  Book  of  American  Poetry  for  1915  avows 
that  there  is  in  Miss  Teasdale's  art  the  purest  song 
quality  in  American  poetry. 

In  "Love  Songs,"  says  The  New  York  Times,  "Sara 
Teasdale's  best  and  most  characteristic  work  is  pre 
sented.  Her  lyrics  will  far  outlast  this  period  and 
become  part  of  that  legacy  of  pure  song  which  one 
age  leaves  to  another." 

Perhaps  no  living  American  poet  has  had  so  many 
poems  set  to  music  as  has  Sara  Teasdale,  whose  sing 
ing  words  and  singing  lines  abound  in  these  excerpts 
from  her  "Love  Songs": 

THE  LOOK 

Strephon  kissed  me  in  the  spring, 

Robin  in  the  fall, 
But  Colin  only  looked  at  me, 

And  never  kissed  at  all. 

Strephon's  kiss  was  lost  in  jest, 
Robin's  lost  in  play, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY.  17 

But  the  kiss  in  Colin's  eyes 
Haunts  me  night  and  day. 

SPRING  NIGHT 

The  park  is  filled  with  night  and  fog, 
The  veils  are  drawn  about  the  world, 

The  drowsy  lights  along  the  paths 
Are  dim  and  pearled. 

I  AM  NOT  YOURS 

I  am  not  yours,  not  lost  in  you 

Not  lost,  although  I  long  to  be 
Lost  as  a  candle  lit  at  noon, 

Lost  as  a  snowflake  in  the  sea. 

MOODS 

I  am  the  still  rain  falling, 
Too  tired  for  singing  mirth 

Oh,  be  the  green  fields  calling, 
Oh,  be  for  me  the  earth ! 

THE  ROSE  AND  THE  BEE 

If  I  were  a  bee  and  you  were  a  rose, 

Would  you  let  me  in  when  the  gray  wind  blows  ? 
Would  you  hold  your  petals  wide  apart, 
Would  you  let  me  in  to  find  your  heart, 
If  I  were  a  rose?  .  .  . 

As  for  the  war  songs  which  our  American  poets 
have  made  from  World  War  inspirations,  Sara  Teas- 
dale's  "Sons"  is  of  stirring  beauty: 

Men  in  brown  with  marching  feet, 

Like  a  great  machine  moved  down  the  street, 


i8  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

And  the  shrieking  of  a  fife 
Led  that  river  of  young  life, 
Soldiers  bearing  kits  and  guns, 
Mothers'  sons — mothers'  sons. 

Out  of  the  crowd  a  woman  pressed 
Forward  a  little  from  the  rest. 
"That's  him,"  she  said,  "the  third  one  there, 
The  third  one,  with  the  light  brown  hair !" 
She  caught  my  arm  and  then  she  swayed 
And  whispered — I  suppose  she  prayed. 
And  still  they  pass  with  kits  and  guns, 
Mothers'  sons. 


CHAPTER  III 
Witter  Bynner 

When  The  New  World  was  published  some  years 
ago,  people  who  followed  the  poetry  mart  found  in 
its  author,  Witter  Bynner,  a  new  voice  of  remarkable 
strength  and  astonishing  clearness  in  contemporary 
American  poetry.  And  this  poem  of  progressive 
thought  was  but  the  forerunner  of  meritorious  things 
to  come. 

There  has  been  nothing  static  about  Witter  Byn- 
ner's  work.  His  poetry  has  grown  with  the  years  and 
is  not  yet  in  fullest  fruit. 

Witter  Bynner  stands  to  the  fore  of  our  American 
contemporary  poets  by  reason  of  the  work  he  has 
done,  the  good  things  he  will  accomplish,  and  the 
impetus  he  has  given  to  American  poetry  by  means 
of  his  lectures  throughout  the  country  and  his  en 
couragement  to  fledgling  poets. 

Witter  Bynner  was  born  in  Brooklyn,  New  York, 
in  1 88 1.  He  received  his  early  education  in  Massa 
chusetts  at  the  schools  in  Brookline.  He  was  editor 
of  the  school  paper,  The  Sagamore,  and  in  1902  took 
his  degree  at  Harvard,  where  he  had  been  one  of  the 
editors  of  The  Advocate. 

The  editor's  desk  of  McClure's  Magazine  next 
claimed  his  attention,  where  he  stayed  until  1906,  when 

19 


20  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY, 

he  became  literary  advisor  to  Small,  Maynard  &  Com 
pany,  retiring  to  the  artists'  colony  at  Cornish,  N.  H., 
to  engage  in  the  business  of  poetry  writing. 

In  1907  "An  Ode  to  Harvard  and  Other  Poems" 
was  published,  followed  by  "Kit,"  a  one-act  play,  two 
years  afterward. 

"An  Immigrant,"  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem  of 
1911,  was  his  work — a  radical  piece  of  writing  which 
startled  his  academic  audience  by  his  ardent  plea  for 
equal  suffrage.  This  was  the  beginning  of  his  public 
stand  for  suffrage,  upon  which  he  has  spoken  and 
campaigned  ever  since. 

With  "Tiger,"  Witter  Bynner  was  classed  as  a 
radical,  something  of  an  outlaw,  in  fact,  until  Amy 
Lowell's  polyphonic  prose  descended  in  our  midst,  and 
form  rather  than  theme  became  the  object  of  poetical 
dispute.  "Tiger"  was  acted  in  Philadelphia,  but  barred 
in  other  cities,  and  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
one-act  plays  to  be  written  by  an  American  playwright. 
It  has  been  translated  into  French,  and  was  much 
commented  upon  in  London,  where  the  London  Book 
man  said  of  it:  "We  doubt  if  so  much  of  actual  life 
and  of  appalling  significance  were  ever  packed  into 
such  small  compass  before." 

While  it  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  writings  of  Wit 
ter  Bynner  have  often  found  voice  in  play  form,  it  is 
to  his  long  and  unusual  love  poem,  "The  New  World," 
upon  which  he  spent  six  years,  and  his  "Grenstone 
Poems"  that  we  must  look  for  the  genius  of  a  poet 
who  so  strongly  lives  up  to  the  best  traditions  handed 
down  by  Whitman. 

It  is  particularly  by  virtue  of  his  "Grenstone  Poems" 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  21 

that  Witter  Bynner  has  marked  himself  upon  the  best 
that  so  far  we  may  hand  down  to  the  next  generation. 
Here  is  a  lyrical  quality  that  is  superb,  democracy's 
spirit  and  love  of  free  things  that  embodies  our  high 
est  ideals  and  establishes  new  values  of  their  own. 
And  here  is  a  poet  who  can  write  with  equal  beauty  in 
the  customary  and  accepted  forms,  and  who  also  is 
able  to  break  into  new  ways  and  new  forms  in  a 
fashion  that  the  following  selections  from  "Grenstone 
Poems"  show : 

POPLARS 

Poplars   against   a  mountain 

Seem  frequently  to  me 
To  be  little-windowed  cities 

And  sun-waves  on  the  sea. 

Perhaps  dead  men  remember 

Those  beckonings  of  fire, 
Waves  that  have  often  crumbled 

And  windows  of  desire.  .  .  . 

Another  year  and  some  one, 

Standing  where  I  now  stand, 
Shall  watch  my  tree  rekindle, 

From  ancient  sea  and  land — 

The  beckoning  of  an  ocean, 

The  beckoning  of  a  town, 
Till  the  sun's  behind  the  mountain 

And  the  wind  dies  down. 

THE  CIRCUS 

.  .  .  .  Whose  vast  and  rusted  deeps  were  unmoving  but 
for  the  slow,  blue,  diagonal  line  of  twilight,  as  clear 


22  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

as  the  blue,  diagonal  shirt  across  the  flesh  of  the 

fellow  in  the  hanging  rings.  .  .  . 
And  from  the  edge  of  the  canyon  a  blue- jay  darted  and 

poised  and  chirped,  as  undaunted  as  the  Mexican 

boy  darting  and  uttering  his  small,  hoarse  phrases 

over  the  edge  of  death.  .  .  . 
That  rim 
Where  the  sky  at  night  is  tipped  upside  down  and  silence 

is  brought  to  your  feet, 
The  silence  containing  China  and  Syria  and  Egypt  and 

all  their  architecture  and  swift  motions  and  their 

pyramids  and  unremembered  speech — 
And  a  river  that  pours  unheard. 

"Grenstone  Poems"  was  judged  by  the  Columbia 
University  as  one  of  the  two  best  books  of  poetry  pub 
lished  during  1917.  A  significant  poem  of  the  col 
lection  is  the  one  from  which  the  volume  takes  its 
name,  "Grenstone" : 

"Is  there  such  a  place  as  Grenstone?" 

Celia,  hear  them  ask! — 
Tell  me,  shall  we  share  it  with  them  ? 

Shall  we  let  them  breathe  and  bask 

On  the  windy,  sunny  pasture, 
Where  the  hill-top  turns  its  face 

Toward  the  valley  of  the  mountain, 
Our  beloved  place? 

Shall  we  show  them  through  our  churchyard, 

With  its  crumbling  wall 
Set  between  the  dead  and  living? 

Shall  our  willowed  waterfall, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  23 

Huckleberries,  pines  and  bluebirds, 
Be  a  secret  we  shall  share?  .  .  . 

If  they  make  but  little  of  it, 
Celia,  shall  we  care? 

"Grenstone  Poems"  form  by  their  sequence  a  more 
or  less  definite  narrative.  A  young  poet,  dejected,  goes 
to  the  country  town  of  Grenstone,  where  after  a  time 
he  meets  Celia — through  whom  not  only  life  becomes 
rich  for  him,  but  death  also.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the 
book  is  a  lyric  transcript  of  the  finding  and  unfolding 
of  that  happiness  to  which  the  poet  has  given  a  dif 
ferent  kind  of  expression  in  the  philosophic  narrative 
of  'The  New  World." 

Bynner's  "Lincoln"  is  redundant  with  the  spirit  of 
democracy  and  it  is  of  interest  to  study  this  in  com 
parison  with  his  more  recent  tribute  to  young  France, 
which  found  its  inspiration  in  Pierre  de  Lanux's  book, 
"Young  France  and  America." 

REPUBLIC  TO  REPUBLIC 

1776-1917 
France ! 

It  is  I  answering. 
America ! 
And  it  shall  be  remembered  not  only  in  our  lips  but 

in  our  hearts 
And  shall  awaken  forever  familiar  and  new  as  the 

morning 

That  we  were  the  first  of  all  lands 
To  be  lovers, 

To  run  to  each  other  with  the  incredible  cry 
Of  recognition. 


24  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Bound  by  no  ties  of  nearness  or  of  knowledge 

But  of  the  nearness  of  the  heart, 

You  chose  me  then — 

And  so  I  choose  you  now 

By  the  same  nearness — 

And  the  name  you  called  me  then 

I  call  you  now — 

O  Liberty,  my  Love! 

A  FARMER  REMEMBERS  LINCOLN 

"Lincoln?— 

Well,  I  was  in  the  old  Second  Maine, 

The  first  regiment  in  Washington  from  the  Pine 

Tree  State. 

Of  course  I  didn't  get  the  butt  of  the  clip; 
We  was  there  for  guardin'  Washington — 
We  was  all  green." 


"Yes,  sir.    His  looks  was  kind  o'  hard  to  forget. 

He  was  a  spare  man, 

An  old  farmer. 

Everything  was  all  right,  you  know, 

But  he  wa'n't  a  smooth-appearin'  man  at  all — 

Not  in  no  ways; 

Thin-faced,  long-necked, 

And  a  swellin'  kind  of  a  thick  lip  like. 

"And  he  was  a  jolly  old  fellow — always  cheerful ; 
He  wa'n't  so  high  but  the  boys  could  talk  to  him 

their  own  ways. 

While  I  was  servin'  at  the  Hospital 
He's  come  in  and  say,  'You  look  nice  in  here' — 
Praise  us  up,  you  know. 
And  he'd  bend  over  and  talk  to  the  boys — 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  25 

And  he'd  talk  so  good  to  'em — so  close — 

That's  why  I  call  him  a  farmer. 

I  don't  mean  that  everything  about  him  wa'n't  all 

right,  you  understand, 
It's  just — well,  I  was  a  farmer — 
And  he  was  my  neighbor,  anybody's  neighbor. 

"I  guess  even  you  young  folks  would  'a'  liked  him." 

Witter  Bynner  is  a  firm  believer  in  the  work  of 
American  poets  and  gives  high  place  to  the  writings 
of  Vachel  Lindsay,  Edgar  Lee  Masters  and  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson. 

With  the  explosion  of  spectricism  Bynner  was  dis 
covered  in  the  capacity  of  a  vers  libre  baiter  which 
found  its  inspiration,  according  to  Mr.  Bynner,  as  fol 
lows: 

"Imagists  and  Vorticists  long  had  aroused  my  ire, 
and  one  day  in  Chicago  I  determined  to  form  an  ultra 
modern  school  of  poetry  myself  just  to  show  how 
easily  it  might  be  done.  I  was  attending  a  perform 
ance  of  the  Russian  Ballet  in  Chicago  at  the  moment 
when  the  idea  struck  me.  What  should  I  call  my  new 
school?  I  looked  down  at  my  program  and  found  it 
opened  at  'Le  Spectre  de  la  Rose.'  The  word  spectre 
struck  me.  Spectrists — that  was  a  good,  suggestive 
name.  I  adopted  it  forthwith." 

In  the  preface  of  "Spectra,"  a  collection  of  the  verse 
by  Emanuel  Morgan  (Witter  Bynner)  and  Anne 
Knish  (Arthur  Davison  Ficke),  the  following  defini 
tion  is  given : 

"An  explanation  of  the  term  'Spectric'  will  indicate 
something  of  the  nature  of  the  technique  which  it  de- 


26  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

scribes.  'Spectric'  has,  in  this  connection,  three  sep 
arate  but  closely  related  meanings.  In  the  first  place, 
it  speaks,  to  the  mind,  of  that  process  of  diffraction 
by  which  are  disarticulated  the  several  colored  and 
other  rays  of  which  light  is  composed.  It  indicates 
our  feeling  that  the  theme  of  a  poem  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  prism,  upon  which  the  colorless  white  light  of 
infinite  existence  falls  and  is  broken  up  into  glowing, 
beautiful,  and  intelligible  hues.  In  its  second  sense,  the 
term  Spectric  relates  to  the  reflex  vibrations  of  physi 
cal  light,  and,  by  analogy,  the  after-colors  of  the  poet's 
initial  vision.  In  its  third  sense,  Spectric  connotes  the 
overtones,  adumbrations,  or  spectres  which  for  the  poet 
haunt  all  objects  both  of  the  seen  and  unseen  world, 
those  shadowy  projections,  sometimes  grotesque, 
which,  hovering  around  the  real,  give  to  the  real  its 
full  ideal  significance  and  its  poetic  worth.  These 
spectres  are  the  manifold  spell  and  true  essence  of  ob 
jects, — like  the  magic  that  would  inevitably  encircle  a 
mirror  from  the  hand  of  Helen  of  Troy." 

But  if  Bynner's  little  fling  into  the  "Spectric"  is  re 
sponsible  for  style  of  'The  Beloved  Stranger,"  that 
new  and  diverse  style  of  poetical  expression  in  which 
Mr.  Bynner's  latest  book  will  appear,  it  has  served  a 
worthy  purpose. 

The  following  poems  are  from  it: 

AUTUMN 

Last  year,  and  other  years, 

When  autumn  was  a  vision  of  old  friendships, 

Of  friends  gone  many  ways 

Yet  never  gone, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  27 

I  stood  alone  upon  this  bank  of  coppered  fern, 

I  breathed  my  height  of  isolation, 

Encircled  by  a  remembering  countryside. 

I    touched   dead   fingers   in    a   larch; 

I  sailed  on  long  blue  waves  of  land 

Transfixed  the  whole  horizon  round; 

I  wore  the  old  imperial  shades 

Of  aster,  sumac,  goldenrod; 

I  flaunted  my  banners  of  maple; 

And,  when  the  sun  went  down, 

I  lay  full  length 

Upon  a  scarlet  death-bed. 

So  happy  a  thing  was  autumn, 

Other  years 

But  here  you  stand  beside  me  on  this  hill, 

And  shake  your  head  and  smile  your  smile 

And  twist  these  things  lightly  between  your 

fingers 

As  a  pinch  of  dust 
And  bare  your  throat 
And  show  me  only  spring, 
Spring,  spring, 

Fluttering  like  your  slender  side, 
Cascading  like  your  hair. 

COINS 

I  am  a  miser  of  my  memories  of  you 
And  will  not  spend  them. 
When  they  were  anticipations 
I  spent  them. 

And  bought  you  with  them. 
But  now  I  have  exchanged  you  for  memories, 
And  I  will  only  pour  them  from  one  hand 
into  the  other 


28 

And  back  again, 
Listening  to  their 
Qink, 

Till  some  one  comes 
Worth  using  them 
To  buy.  .  .  . 

Then  I  will  change  them  again  into  anticipa 
tions. 

Both  poets  and  critics  have  found  in  Witter  Bynner 
a  rare  genius  and  have  written  of  him  as  follows : 

"Witter  Bynner  has  come  into  his  own  ...  a  great 
poet" — Los  Angeles  Graphic  (Margaret  B.  Wilkin 
son). 

"Underlying  his  honest  line  there  is  a  firm-founded 
human  note  that  reaches  out  through  the  dress  of 
present-day  phrase  and  fixes  upon  one's  mind  with  the 
eternal  grip  of  truth." — New  York  Evening  Sun. 

"If  you  haven't  seen  Bynner's  Ode,"  writes  one  Har 
vard  man  to  another,  "hasten,  hurry,  run,  waste  no 
time,  but  get  a  copy  of  your  own.  Here  are  your 
memories,  your  fun,  your  dreams,  your  friendships, 
your  professors,  your  familiar  sights  and  sounds, 
caught  between  the  covers." 

"We  do  not  know  of  anything  in  American  litera 
ture  quite  like  this  celebration  of  a  university  by  one 
of  its  sons.  ...  It  is  successful  from  first  to  last." — 
Boston  Transcript. 

"A  powerful,  eloquent,  vehement  language — and 
thought  that  rushes  on  impetuously  toward  the  sentient 
end." — William  Butler  Yeats. 

Mr.  Bynner  is  a  resident  of  New  York,  in  which 
city  the  greater  part  of  his  work  is  done.  His  pub- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  29 

lished  poems  include  "Young  Harvard  and  Other 
Poems,"  "Tiger,"  "The  Little  King,"  "The  New 
World,"  "Iphigenia  in  Tauris,"  "Grenstone  Poems," 
and  "The  Beloved  Stranger."  Mr.  Bynner's  most  re 
cent  work,  "The  Golden  Wing,"  a  morality  play,  will 
be  published  following  its  metropolitan  presentation, 
promised  for  the  near  future. 

There  is  Oriental  blood  which  flows  in  the  veins  of 
Witter  Bynner,  and  perhaps  it  is  due  to  this  ancestral 
heritage  that  the  prophetic  utterances  found  in  our 
greatest  poets  is  so  strongly  developed  in  this  man. 
This  is  evidenced  time  and  again  in  his  writings. 

And  as  for  Bynner's  religion,  there  is  no  small  trace 
of  a  deference  to  Buddah  in  some  of  his  poems,  no 
doubt  again  an  inheritance.  For  example : 

Behold  the  man  alive  in  me, 

Behold  the  man  in  you! 
If  there  is  God — am  I  not  he? — 

Shall  I  myself  undo? 

I  have  been  waiting  long  enough  .  .  . 

Impossible  gods,  good-by; 
I  wait  no  more.  .  .  .  The  way  is  rough — 

But  the  god  who  climbs  is  I. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ROBERT  FROST,   EDWIN  ARLINGTON   ROBINSON 

Robert  Frost 

William  Lyon  Phelps,  writing  in  The  Bookman, 
declares  that  the  difference  between  Vachel  Lindsay 
and  Robert  Frost  is  the  difference  between  a  drum- 
major  and  a  botanist,  for  the  former  marches  gaily  at 
the  head  of  his  big  band,  looking  up  and  around  at  the 
crowd;  the  latter  finds  it  sweet 

with  uplifted  eyes 
To  pace  the  ground,  if  path  be  there  or  none. 

New  England  contemporaries  of  Frost  have  praised 
him  and  found  his  work  good.  His  books  have  been 
both  artistic  and  commercially  satisfactory.  But  to 
the  author  of  this  book,  his  poems  are  cold,  often 
gaunt  and  bare  in  their  stern  realism. 

England  first  welcomed  Frost.  He  is  the  sort  of 
poet  that  many  English  critics  obviously  would  de 
clare  to  be  "type  pure  American."  He  has  chosen  the 
poetic  field  of  an  earlier  style  of  popular  narrative 
verse  rather  than  lyric  in  the  majority  of  his  poems, 
and  it  is  when  producing  such  lines  as  these  from 
"The  Wood-Pile"  that  he  is  at  his  best : 

30 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  31 

Out  walking  in  the  frozen  swamp  one  grey  day 
I  paused  and  said,  "I  will  turn  back  from  here. 
No,  I  will  go  on  farther — and  we  shall  see." 
The  hard  snow  held  me,  save  where  now  and  then 
One  foot  went  down.    The  view  was  all  in  lines 
Straight  up  and  down  of  tall  slim  trees 
Too  much  alike  to  mark  or  name  a  place  by 
So  as  to  say  for  certain  I  was  here 
Or  somewhere  else ;  I  was  just  far  from  home. 
A  small  bird  flew  before  me.    He  was  careful 
To  put  a  tree  between  us  when  he  lighted, 
And  say  no  word  to  tell  me  who  he  was 
Who  was  so  foolish  as  to  think  what  he  thought. 
He  thought  that  I  was  after  him  for  a  feather — 
The  white  one  in  his  tail;  like  one  who  takes 
Everything  said  as  personal  to  himself. 

Clematis 

Had  wound  strings  round  and  round  it  like  a  bundle. 
What  held  it  though  on  one  side  was  a  tree 
Still  growing,  and  on  one  a  stake  and  prop, 
These  latter  about  to  fall.    I  thought  that  only 
Some  one  who  lived  in  turning  to  fresh  tasks 
Could  so  forget  his  handiwork  on  which 
He  spent  himself,  the  labour  of  his  axe, 
And  leave  it  there  far  from  a  useful  fireplace 
To  warm  the  frozen  swamp  as  best  it  could 
With  the  slow  smokeless  burning  of  decay. 

Robert  Frost  was  born  in  San  Francisco,  California, 
March  26,  1875,  and  for  over  nine  years  he  lived  in 
a  community  that  was  almost  at  the  other  extreme, 
geographically  as  well  as  temperamentally,  from  that 
part  of  the  country  which  later  was  to  claim  him  as 
its  own  poet. 


32  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

As  a  boy  Robert  Frost  tried  his  hand  at  various 
things.  Like  Louis  Untermeyer  and  Cale  Young  Rice, 
he  accepted  school  as  one  of  the  necessary  evils  of  life. 
He  attended  Dartmouth  and  later  Harvard,  spending 
but  a  few  months  at  the  former  and  two  years  at  the 
latter.  Between  these  educational  experiences,  he  mar 
ried  Eleanor  Miriam  White  in  1895.  In  1900  he  be 
came  a  farmer  in  New  Hampshire.  In  1911  he  taught 
school  and  a  year  later  went  to  England. 

It  was  in  London  in  1913  that  his  first  book  of 
poems,  "A  Boy's  Will,"  was  published,  just  nineteen 
years  after  his  first  published  poem  appeared  in  The 
Independent.  His  second  volume  was  also  published 
in  London  in  1914,  "North  of  Boston."  In  March, 
1915,  he  returned  to  America,  with  England's  stamp 
of  approval  upon  his  work.  He  bought  a  farm  in 
New  Hampshire,  and  "Mountain  Interval"  appeared 
in  1916. 

Robert  Frost  is  an  outdoor  poet  who  glories  in  such 
poem  titles  as  "Birches,"  "Pea  Brush,"  "Putting  in 
the  Seed,"  "The  Cow  in  Apple  Time,"  "A  Late  Walk," 
"Wind  and  Window  Flower,"  and  "Blueberries." 

Again  to  quote  Mr.  Phelps,  who  has  so  well  ex 
pressed  the  style  of  Robert  Frost  in  these  lines,  "In 
spite  of  his  preoccupation  with  the  exact  value  of  oral 
words,  he  is  not  a  singing  lyrist.  There  is  not  much 
bel  canto  in  his  volumes.  Nor  do  any  of  his  poems 
seem  spontaneous.  He  is  a  thoughtful  man,  given  to 
meditation;  the  meanest  flower  or  a  storm-bedraggled 
bird  will  lend  him  material  for  poetry.  But  the  ex 
pression  of  his  poems  does  not  seem  naturally  fluid. 
I  suspect  he  has  blotted  many  a  line.  He  is  as  delib- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  33 

erate  as  Thomas  Hardy,  and  cultivates  the  lapidary 
style.  Even  in  the  conversations  frequently  intro 
duced  into  his  pieces,  he  is  as  economical  with  words 
as  his  characters  are  with  cash.  This  gives  to  his 
work  a  hardness  of  outline  in  keeping  with  the  New 
England  temperament  and  the  New  Hampshire  cli 
mate.  There  is  no  doubt  that  much  of  his  peculiarly 
effective  dramatic  power  is  gained  by  his  extremely 
careful  expenditure  of  language." 

There  is  a  noticeable  contrast  between  Mr.  Frost's 
book,  "A  Boy's  Will,"  introspective  poems  of  youth's 
impressions,  "North  of  Boston,"  with  its  hardy  New 
England  pictures,  and  "Mountain  Interval,"  with  its 
strongly  atmospheric  poems  of  New  England  seasons 
and  life. 

Such  lines  as  these  are  within  the  poet's  love  of  his 
New  England  and  its  natural  beauties  that  best  ex 
emplify  his  knowledge  and  ability  to  interpret  them : 

BIRCHES 

When  I  see  birches  bend  to  left  and  right 

Across  the  lines  of  straighter,  darker  trees, 

I  like  to  think  some  boy's  been  swinging  them. 

But  swinging  doesn't  bend  them  down  to  stay.      ' 

Ice-storms  do  that.    Often  you  must  have  seen  them 

Loaded  with  ice  a  sunny  winter  morning 

After  a  rain.     They  click  upon  themselves 

As  the  breeze  rises,  and  turn  many-coloured 

As  the  stir  cracks  and  crazes  their  enamel. 

Soon  the  sun's  warmth  makes  them  shed  crystal  shells 

Shattering  and  avalanching  on  the  snow-crust — 

Such  heaps  of  broken  glass  to  sweep  away 

You'd  think  the  inner  dome  of  heaven  had  fallen. 


34  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Mr.  Frost  lives  the  year  round  on  his  farm  in 
Franconia,  New  Hampshire.  He  is  not,  however,  a 
gentleman  farmer.  On  his  farm,  backed  up  against 
a  forest  of  fir  trees  and  facing  one  of  the  most  beauti 
ful  mountains  in  New  England,  he  writes  slowly,  sur 
rounded  by  the  nature  he  loves  and  the  companion 
ship  of  his  wife  and  four  children,  Lesley,  Carol, 
Irma  and  Marjorie. 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 

"We  must  never  forget  that  all  inherited  prejudice 
and  training  pulls  one  way,  in  these  unfortunate  cases ; 
the  probing,  active  mind  pulls  another.  The  result  is 
a  profound  melancholy,  tinged  with  cynicism.  Self- 
analysis  has  sapped  joy,  and  the  impossibility  of  con 
structing  an  ethical  system  in  accordance  both  with 
desire  and  with  tradition  has  twisted  the  mental  vision 
out  of  all  true  proportion.  It  takes  the  lifetime  of 
more  than  one  individual  to  throw  off  a  superstition,  _ 
and  the  effort  to  do  so  is  not  made  without  sacrifice. 

"Unless  one  understands  this  fact,  one  cannot  com 
prehend  the  difficult  and  beautiful  poetry  of  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson." 

So  writes  Amy  Lowell  in  her  study  of  Edwin  Ar 
lington  Robinson  in  "Tendencies  in  Modern  Ameri 
can  Poetry,"  a  most  understanding  work  by  a  sincere 
admirer  of  his  talent. 

Edwin  Arlington  Robinson  was  born  on  Decem 
ber  22,  1869,  at  Head  Tide,  Maine.  He  was  only 
two  or  three  years  old  when  his  parents  moved  to  the 
town  of  Gardiner.  He  entered  the  Gardiner  High 


35 

School  and  from  there  went  to  Harvard  College  in1 
1891,  from  which  he  did  not  graduate,  due  to  the  ill 
health  of  his  father,  which  caused  him  to  discontinue 
his  college  studies  in  1893.  In  1896  came  the  fore 
runner  of  his  poetic  expressions  in  a  privately  printed 
little  book.  This  was  followed  by  "The  Children  of 
the  Night"  in  1897. 

Of  "The  Children  of  the  Night,"  Miss  Lowefll 
writes:  "It  must  be  admitted  that  this  is  one  of  the 
most  completely  gloomy  books  in  the  whole  range  of 
poetry.  The  note  is  struck  in  this  quatrain: 

"We  cannot  crown  ourselves  with  everything, 
Nor  can  we  coax  the  Fates  with  us  to  quarrel: 

No  matter  what  we  are,  or  what  we  sing, 
Time  finds  a  withered  leaf  in  every  laurel." 

Following  the  publication  of  this  book,  Mr.  Robin 
son  passed  through  the  lean  years  of  a  poet  born  too 
soon,  and  five  years  went  by  before  his  next  volume, 
"Captain  Craig,"  was  issued.  This  bore  witness  of  a 
psychological  growth  of  most  serious  import. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  Mr.  Robinson's  career 
that  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt,  at  that  time  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  became  interested  in  his 
work  and  offered  him  a  position  in  the  New  York 
Custom  House,  which  position  he  held  for  five  years, 
leaving  it  in  1910  upon  the  publication  of  his  third 
book,  "The  Town  Down  the  River."  There  are  three 
significant  studies  of  famous  men  in  this  book — Lin 
coln,  Roosevelt,  and  Napoleon.  The  poem  on  Lincoln 
he  calls  "The  Master" : 


36  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

A  flying  word  from  here  and  there 
Had  sown  the  name  at  which  we  sneered, 
But  soon  the  name  was  everywhere, 
To  be  reviled  and  then  revered : 
A  presence  to  be  loved  and  feared, 
We  cannot  hide  it,  or  deny 
That  we,  the  gentlemen  who  jeered, 
May  be  forgotten  by  and  by. 

He  came  when  days  were  perilous 
And  hearts  of  men  were  sore  beguiled; 
And  having  made  his  note  of  us, 
He  pondered  and  was  reconciled. 
Was  ever  master  yet  so  mild 
As  he,  and  so  untamable? 
We  doubted,  even  when  he  smiled, 
Not  knowing  what  he  knew  so  well. 

He  knew  that  undeceiving  fate 

Would  shame  us  whom  he  served  unsought ; 

He  knew  that  he  must  wince  and  wait — 

The  jest  of  those  for  whom  he  fought; 

He  knew  devoutly  what  he  thought 

Of  us  and  of  our  ridicule ; 

He  knew  that  we  must  all  be  taught 

Like  little  children  in  a  school. 

We  gave  a  glamour  to  the  task 

That  he  encountered  and  saw  through, 

But  little  of  us  did  he  ask, 

And  little  did  we  ever  do. 

And  what  appears  if  we  review 

The  season  when  we  railed  and  chaffed  ? 

It  is  the  face  of  one  who  knew 

That  we  were  learning  while  we  laughed. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  37 

The  face  that  in  our  vision  feels 
Again  the  venom  that  we  flung, 
Transfigured  to  the  world  reveals 
The  vigilance  to  which  we  clung. 
Shrewd,  hallowed,  harassed,  and  among 
The  mysteries  that  are  untold, 
The  face  we  see  was  never  young 
Nor  could  it  ever  have  been  old. 

For  he,  to  whom  we  had  applied 
Our  shopman's  test  of  age  and  worth, 
Was  elemental  when  he  died, 
As  he  was  ancient  at  his  birth : 
The  saddest  among  kings  of  earth, 
Bowed  with  a  galling  crown,  this  man 
Met  rancor  with  a  cryptic  mirth, 
Laconic — and  Olympian. 

The  love,  the  grandeur,  and  the  fame 
Are  bounded  by  the  world  alone ; 
The  calm,  the  smouldering,  and  the  flame 
Of  awful  patience  were  his  own : 
With  him  they  are  forever  flown 
Past  all  our  fond  self-shadowings, 
Wherewith  we  cumber  the  Unknown 
As  with  inept,  Icarian  wings. 

For  we  were  not  as  other  men: 
'Twas  ours  to  soar  and  his  to  see. 
But  we  are  coming  down  again, 
And  we  shall  come  down  pleasantly; 
Nor  shall  we  longer  disagree 
On  what  it  is  to  be  sublime, 
But  flourish  in  our  perigee 
And  have  one  Titan  at  a  time. 


38  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

It  was  with  the  publication  of  "The  Man  Against 
the  Sky"  that  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  six  years 
later,  achieved  one  of  the  finest  things  he  has  yet  done. 
This  was  in  1916.  Here,  with  all  the  genius  that  is 
his  own,  he  has  crammed  into  a  minimum  space  some 
colossal  verse. 

Robinson  refused  to  be  prolific,  for  in  the  twenty 
years  between  the  publication  of  "The  Children  of  the 
Night"  and  this  book  he  had  produced  in  toto  four 
volumes  of  verse  and  two  plays. 

The  poem  from  which  "The  Man  Against  the  Sky" 
takes  its  name  comes  from  the  last  one  in  the  book 
and  begins: 

Between  me  and  the  sunset,  like  a  dome 

Against  the  glory  of  a  world  on  fire, 

Now  burned  a  sudden  hill, 

Bleak,  round,  and  high,  by  flame-lit  height  made 

higher, 

With  nothing  on  it  for  the  flame  to  kill 
Save  one  who  moved  and  was  alone  up  there 
To  loom  before  the  chaos  and  the  glare 
As  if  he  were  the  last  god  going  home 
Unto  his  last  desire. 

Certain  critics  have  found  "Ben  Jonson  Enter 
tains  a  Man  from  Stratford"  to  be  one  of  the  most 
original  in  this  book.  "Flammonde"  also  is  one  of 
the  noteworthy  poems  in  this  collection : 

The  man  Flammonde,  from  God  knows  where, 
With  firm  address  and  foreign  air, 
With  news  of  nations  in  his  talk 
And  something  royal  in  his  walk, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  39 

With  glint  of  iron  in  his  eyes, 
But  never  doubt,  nor  yet  surprise, 
Appeared,  and  stayed,  and  held  his  head 
As  one  by  kings  accredited. 

Erect,  with  his  alert  repose 
About  him,  and  about  his  clothes, 
He  pictured  all  tradition  hears 
Of  what  we  owe  to  fifty  years. 
His  cleansing  heritage  of  taste 
Paraded  neither  want  nor  waste; 
And  what  he  needed   for  his   fee 
To  live,  he  borrowed  graciously. 

There  was  a  woman  in  our  town 

On  whom  the  fashion  was  to  frown; 

But  while  our  talk  renewed  the  tinge 

Of  a  long-faded  scarlet  fringe, 

The  man  Flammonde  saw  none  of  that, 

And  what  he  saw  we  wondered  at — 

That  none  of  us,  in  her  distress, 

Could  hide  or  find  our  littleness. 

We  cannot  know  how  much  we  learn 
From  those  who  never  will  return, 
Until  a  flash  of  unforeseen 
Remembrance   falls  on  what  has  been. 
We've  each  a  darkening  hill  to  climb; 
And  this  is  why,  from  time  to  time 
In  Tilbury  Town,  we  look  beyond. 
Horizons  for  the  man  Flammonde. 

"Merlin"  was  published  in  March,  1917.  It  is  Rob 
inson's  own  version  of  the  time-worn  legend  and  is  not 
nearly  so  good  an  example  of  his  work  as  is  found 


40  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

in  the  earlier  volumes.     It  is  oftentimes  tedious  and 
long  drawn  out. 

Of  passing  note  is  the  fact  that  the  two  "profes 
sionally"  sworn  enemies  of  each  other,  Amy  Lowell 
and  Witter  Bynner,  have  found  his  writing  good  and 
marked  with  the  genius  of  true  poetry. 


CHAPTER  V 
Percy  MacKaye 

Poet,  dramatist,  and  pageant-maker  is  Percy 
MacKaye,  whose  work  is  well  worthy  of  the  place  it 
holds  in  our  contemporary  American  poetry.  Here 
is  a  man  whose  work  as  a  dramatist  has  not  imperiled 
such  tuneful  lyrics  as 

Frail  Sleep,  that  blowest  by  fresh  banks 
Of  quiet,  crystal  pools,  beside  whose  brink 
The  varicolored  dreams,  like  cattle,  come  to  drink, 

Cool  Sleep,  thy  reeds,  in  solemn  ranks, 

That  murmur  peace  to  me  by  midnight's  streams, 
At  dawn  I  pluck,  and  dayward  pipe  my  flock  of  dreams. 

And  MacKaye  turns  with  equal  ability  to  the  "Pa 
geant  and  Masque  of  Saint  Louis,"  presented  in  Forest 
Park  of  that  city  on  five  successive  days,  at  each  per 
formance  of  which  150,000  people  attended. 

The  paternal  grandfather  of  Mr.  MacKaye  came  to 
this  country  from  Scotland  about  1800,  and  his  grand 
father,  Colonel  James  Morrison  MacKaye,  a  staunch 
adherent  of  anti-slavery  doctrines,  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Clay,  Webster,  Garrison,  and  Lincoln. 
James  Steele  MacKaye,  his  father,  was  dramatist, 
theatre  director  and  inventor,  writing  many  successful 

41 


42  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

plays  of  his  day,  conspicuous  among  which  were 
"Hazel  Kirke"  and  "Paul  Kauvar."  On  his  mother's 
side,  Percy  MacKaye  is  of  New  England  Puritan  de 
scent.  His  maternal  grandmother  was  president  of 
one  of  the  earliest  women's  colleges,  and  his  mother 
is  the  author  of  a  published  dramatization  of  Jane 
Austen's  "Pride  and  Prejudice,"  acted  at  many  schools 
and  colleges. 

From  this  ancestry  came  the  man  who  has  given  us 
such  multi-themed  poetry  but  in  whose  work  no  better 
proof  of  the  poetic  genius  is  found  than  in  these  ma 
jestic  lines. 

THE  CHILD-DANCERS1 

A  bomb  has  fallen  over  Notre  Dame: 
Germans  have  burned  another  Belgian  town: 
Russians  quelled  in  the  east:  England  in  qualm: 

I  closed  my  eyes,  and  laid  the  paper  down. 

Gray  ledge  and  moor-grass  and  pale  bloom  of  light 

By  pale  blue  seas! 

What  laughter  of  a  child  world-sprite, 

Sweet  as  the  horns  of  lone  October  bees, 

Shrills  the  faint  shore  with  mellow,  old  delight? 

What  elves  are  these 

In  smocks  gray-blue  as  sea  and  ledge, 

Dancing  upon  the  silvered  edge 

Of  darkness — each  ecstatic  one 

Making  a  happy  orison, 

With  shining  limbs,  to  the  low-sunken  sun? — 

1  The  Child-Dancers:  The  little  children  of  the  Isadora  Dun 
can  School  of  Dancing,  to  whom  these  verses  refer,  came  to 
America  in  September,  1914,  owing  to  conditions  of  war  in 
France.  Russian,  German,  French,  and  English,  they  form  a 
happy  and  harmonious  family  of  the  belligerent  races. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  43 

See:  now  they  cease 

Like  nesting  birds  from  flight: 

Demure  and  debonair 

They  troop  beside  their  hostess'  chair 

To  make  their  bedtime  courtesies : 

"Spokoinoi  notchi! — Gute  Nachte! 

Bon  soir!   Bon  soir! — Good  night!" 
What  far-gleamed  lives  are  these 
Linked  in  one  holy  family  of  art? — 
Dreams :  dreams  once  Christ  and  Plato  dreamed : 
How  fair  their  happy  shades  depart! 

Dear  God!  how  simple  it  all  seemed, 

Till  once  again 

Before  my  eyes  the  red  type  quivered :  Slain: 

Ten  thousand  of  the  enemy. — 

Then  laughter!  laughter  from  the  ancient  sea 

Sang  in  the  gloaming:  Athens!  Galilee! 

And  elfin  voices  called  from  the  extinuished  light : — 

"Spokoinoi  notchi! — Gute  Nachte! 

Bon  soir!   Bon  soir! — Good  night f" 

Percy  MacKaye  was  born  in  New  York  City,  March 
1 6,  1875,  and  in  this  city  he  gained  from  the  con 
stant  companionship  of  his  father  much  knowledge  of 
the  theatre. 

In  1892-93  he  began  his  first  efforts  in  poetical  lines 
by  writing  a  series  of  choral  songs  for  his  father's 
huge  musical  drama,  "Columbus." 

The  poet  was  graduated  from  Harvard  College  in 
1897  and  a  year  afterwards  was  married  to  Miss 
Marion  Homer  Morse,  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  and  went 
abroad  to  live.  In  Frascati,  near  Rome,  he  wrote  "A 
Garland  to  Sylvia,"  and  in  1905  came  "Fenris  the 


44  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Wolf,"  another  play.  Returning  to  New  York  in 
1900,  Mr.  MacKaye  taught  in  a  private  school  for 
boys  for  three  years,  and  during  this  time  E.  H.  Soth- 
ern  became  interested  in  his  dramatic  work  and  com 
missioned  him  to  write  "The  Canterbury  Pilgrims," 
first  published  in  1903.  A  year  later  Mr.  MacKaye 
joined  the  colony  of  writers  and  artists  at  Cornish, 
New  Hampshire,  where  he  makes  his  permanent  home. 
Perhaps  it  was  here  that  came  the  pastoral  inspiration 
for  "The  Three  Dance  Motives"  which  concluded  with 
"The  Chase" : 

Through  what  vast  wood, 
By  what  wild  paths  of  beautiful  surprise, 
Hast  thou  returned  to  us, 
Diana,  Diana  of  Desire? 
Coming  to  thy  call 
What  huntresses  are  these? 
What  hallowed  chase  ?    What  long,  long  cherished 
goal? 

Through  man's  wan  mind 
By  radiant  paths  of  rhythmic  liberty 
I  am  returned  to  you, 
Diviner,  diviner  of  dreams! 
Those  huntresses,  they  are  my  hallowed  desires — 
My  unquenched  selves  with  overflowing  quivers. 
Joy  is  our  chase  and  goal: 

Our  bodies  the   tense  crossbows,  and  our  wild 
souls  the  shafts ! 

At  some  stage  in  the  life  of  nearly  every  poet  he 
seeks  to  express  his  own  theories  on  poetry,  usually  in 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  45 

verse  form.     Mr.  MacKaye's  "Rain  Revery"  bears 
testimony  to  this: 

In  the  lone  of  night  by  the  pattering  tree 

I  sat  alone  with  Poetry — 

With  Poetry,  my  old  shy  friend, 

And  his  tenuous  shadow  seemed  to  blend — 

Beyond  the  lampshine  on  the  sill — 

With  the  mammoth  shadow  of  the  hill, 

And  his  breath  fell  soft  in  the  pool-dark  pane 

With  the  murmurous,  murmuring  muffled  hoof 

Of  the  rain,  the  rain, 

The  rain  on  the  roof. 

"Ah,  what  of  the  rapture  and  melody 

We  might  have  wrought,  dear  Poetry! 

Imagined  tower  and  dream-built  shrine, 

Must  they  crumble  in  dark  like  this  pale  lampshine  ? 

Our  dawn-flecked  meadows  lyric-shrill, 

Shall  they  lie  as  dumb  as  the  gloom-drenched  hill  ? 

Our  song-voiced  lovers! — Shall  none  remain?" — 

Under  the  galloping,  gusty  hoof 

Answered  the  rain,  rain, 

Rain  on  the  roof. 

The  first  of  Mr.  MacKaye's  plays  to  be  produced 
professionally  was  "Jeanne  d'Arc,"  produced  by  E.  H. 
Sothern  and  Miss  Julia  Marlowe,  in  1906. 

Since  that  time  ten  other  plays  of  his  have  been  acted 
by  such  actors  as  Mr.  Harrison  Grey  Fiske,  Madame 
Bertha  Kalich,  Mr.  Henry  Miller,  Mr.  Frank  Reicher, 
Henrietta  Crosman,  Henry  E.  Dixey,  and  Prof.  J.  S. 
P.  Tatlock.  His  play,  "The  Scarecrow,"  was  acted 
during  two  seasons  in  England  and  America. 


46  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

In  civic  pageantry  Mr.  MacKaye  is  a  pioneer  in 
America,  his  "Gloucester  Pageant"  produced  for  Presi 
dent  Taft  in  August  ( 1906),  being  the  first  large-scale 
pageant  produced  in  this  country.  Since  then  his 
"Sanctuary,"  a  Bird  Masque  in  which  Miss  Eleanor 
Wilson  acted  the  chief  part,  and  his  "Saint  Louis,"  a 
Civic  Masque  in  which  7,000  citizens  of  Saint  Louis 
acted,  in  four  performances,  before  half  a  million 
spectators,  have  attracted  national  attention. 

It  is  by  virtue  of  Mr.  MacKaye's  "Lincoln  Cen 
tenary  Ode,"  one  of  his  longer  poems,  that  he  is  ac 
credited  with  having  produced  one  of  the  most  splen 
did  tributes  in  our  American  literature  to  this  great 
American.  It  concludes : 

Leave,  then,  that  customed  grief 

Which  honorably  mourns  its  martyred  dead, 

And  newly  hail  instead 

The  birth  of  him,  our  hardy  shepherd  chief, 

Who  by  green  paths  of  old  democracy 

Leads  still  his  tribes  to  uplands  of  glad  peace. 

As  long  as — out  of  blood  and  passion  blind — 

Springs  the  pure  justice  of  the  reasoning  mind, 

And  justice,  bending,  scorns  not  to  obey 

Pity,  that  once  in  a  poor  manger  lay, 

As  long  as,  thrall'd  by  time's  imperious  will, 

Brother  hath  bitter  need  of  brother,  still 

His  presence  shall  not  cease 

To  lift  the  ages  toward  his  human  excellence, 

And  races  yet  to  be 

Shall  in  a  rude  hut  do  him  reverence 

And  solemnize  a  simple  man's  nativity. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  47 

Mr.  MacKaye  in  the  preface  to  his  "Collected  Poems 
and  Plays"  says: 

"In  accepting  the  invitation  of  the  publishers  to  col 
lect  a  portion  of  my  published  work  within  the  com 
pass  of  two  volumes,  poems  and  plays,  the  occasion 
seems  fitting  for  me  to  comment  on  some  phases  of  it 
as  related  to  the  reading  public. 

"While  the  writer  was  still  in  his  teens,  he  said  to 
himself:  'There  is  my  life-work;  it  rises  over  there 
beyond :  I  can  see  its  large  outlines.  I  will  give  myself 
till  I  am  forty  to  do  its  'prentice  work :  then  perhaps 
I  may  be  ready  to  tackle  the  real  job — that  vision  which 
lies  there  alluring,  waiting  to  be  realized.' 

"Now,  then,  here  is  forty;  and  here  is  some  of  the 
'prentice  work  gathered  together;  yet,  as  far  as  con 
cerns  myself,  apprenticeship  has  hardly  begun  :  the  real 
life-work  still  beckons,  unrealized,  away  there  beyond. 
For  this  reason,  in  submitting  to  the  reader's  interest 
the  works  here  collected,  I  should  like  to  introduce 
them  anew  rather  as  the  by-gleanings  of  a  journey  but 
just  set  forth  upon,  than  in  any  sense  the  product  of 
a  goal  attained." 

Mr.  MacKaye's  published  works  include  the  follow 
ing:  "The  Canterbury  Pilgrims,"  a  comedy;  "Jeanne 
d'Arc,"  a  tragedy;  "Sappho  and  Phaon,"  a  tragedy; 
"Fenris  the  Wolf,"  a  tragedy ;  "A  Garland  of  Sylvia," 
a  dramatic  revery;  "The  Scarecrow,"  a  tragedy  of  the 
ludicrous;  "Mater,"  an  American  study  in  comedy; 
"The  Sistine  Eve  and  Other  Poems";  "The  Present 
Hour,"  a  book  of  'poems ;  "Lincoln,"  a  centenary  ode ; 
"The  Playhouse  and  the  Play,"  essays  and  addresses ; 
"The  Civic  Theatre,"  essays  and  addresses ;  "Uriel  and 


48  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Other  Poems";  "Anti-Matrimony,"  a  satirical  com 
edy  ;  "To-Morrow,"  a  play  in  three  acts ;  "Sanctuary," 
a  bird  masque;  "Saint  Louis,"  a  civic  masque;  "A 
Thousand  Years  Ago,"  a  romance  of  the  Orient,  and 
"The  Evergreen  Tree." 

In  June,  1914,  President  Nichols,  of  Dartmouth, 
conferred  upon  Mr.  MacKaye  the  honorary  degree 
of  M.A.,  with  these  words:  "Master  of  Arts  to  Percy 
MacKaye,  poet,  dramatist,  critic,  whose  large  vision 
of  the  theatre  includes  the  pageantry  and  idealism  of 
all  men." 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  significant  works  of  Mr. 
MacKaye  will  prove  to  be  a  play,  based  on  the  life  of 
our  first  President,  soon  to  be  presented  and  pub 
lished.  Here  is  exemplified  the  most  significant 
achievement  of  Mr.  MacKaye — the  full  and  complete 
merging  of  poet  and  playwright,  a  merging  against 
which  there  has  too  long  been  unnecessary  distinction. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Edgar  Lee  Masters 

"Spoon  River  Anthology"  is  a  book  possessing  the 
dual  virtues  of  artistry  and  popular  appeal.  It  brought 
forward  the  name  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters  as  a  poet  of 
note  and  bore  witness  to  the  able  judgment  of  that  dis 
cerning  critic — William  Marion  Reedy,  who  first  pub 
lished  Masters  in  his  own  Reedy 's  Mirror.  It  has  been 
whispered  among  those  who  claim  to  know  that  Mas 
ters  wrote  his  Spoon  River  poems  as  a  joke,  a  satire  on 
the  people  of  a  small  town  of  his  youth,  at  the  sugges 
tion  of  Reedy.  But  the  critics  found  it  good  and 
straightway  declared  Masters  a  new  light  in  our  Amer 
ican  poetry. 

"Edgar  Lee  Masters,"  says  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse  in 
The  Bookman,  "is,  in  short,  the  most  penetrating  and 
merciless  psychologist  of  the  present  day  and  surely 
the  bravest.  He  withholds  nothing.  Witness  such  a 
poem  as  "Samuel  Butler  et  Al,"  where  one  indicts  his 
mother  for  a  life  of  recreance  to  the  finer  duties  of 
motherhood,  while  he  pictures  with  pitiless  exactness 
the  whole  panorama  of  her  life.  This  might  be  in 
excusable,  were  it  not  true.  We  have  all  seen  this 
woman  and  observed  every  detail  that  Mr.  Masters 
depicts.  Indeed,  this  book  is  full  of  first-hand  studies, 
of  minute  observation.  These  souls  under  a  micro- 

49 


50  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

scope,  however  they  might  wish  to  escape,  can  with 
hold  nothing.  One  marvels  continually  at  the  relent 
less  analysis  which  probes  deeper  and  deeper,  seeking 
for  the  hidden  springs  of  action.  Only  the  trained 
mind,  the  legal  mind,  could  pursue  such  clues  and  ar 
rive  at  such  unappealable  decisions.  Heredity  has  an 
irresistible  fascination  for  Mr.  Masters,  and  it  ap 
pears  and  reappears  in  his  latest  work.  In  "Excluded 
Middle"  its  effect  upon  a  whole  family  is  shown,  in  the 
light  of  that  ever-baffling  preoccupation  of  Mr.  Masters 
— cross-currents  of  sex,  and  parental  inharmony.  In 
deed,  if  we  have  both  a  penetrating  and  a  luminous 
thinker  in  modern  American  poetry,  it  is  Edgar  Lee 
Masters,  and  one  says  this  with  full  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  always  pleasant  to  follow  him  in  his 
penetrations." 

"Spoon  River  Anthology"  is  a  sequence  of  narrative 
poems  dealing  with  the  supposedly  after-death  "soul 
barings"  of  various  "dear  departeds"  in  the  village  of 
Spoon  River.  Here  the  good  and  the  bad — regardless 
of  earthly  pose — are  held  up  before  the  mirror  of 
Truth  with  all  their  virtues  and  vices  exposed  in  her 
fair  white  light.  Here  "Cassius  Hueffer"  says  of  him 
self: 

They  have  chiseled  on  my  stone  the  words: 
"His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements  so 

mixed  in  him 
That  nature  might  stand  up  and  say  to  all 

the  world, 
This  was  a  man." 
Those  who  knew  me  smile 
As  they  read  this  empty  rhetoric. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  51 

My  epitaph  should  have  been : 

"Life  was  not  gentle  to  him, 

And  the  elements  so  mixed  in  him 

That  he  made  warfare  on  life, 

In  the  which  he  was  slain." 

While   I    lived   I    could   not   cope  with   the 

slanderous  tongues, 
Now  that  I  am  dead  I  must  submit  to  an 

epitaph 
Graven  by  a  fool ! 

Masters'  tragic  poem  of  slander  and  gossip  is  the 
story  of  "Mrs.  Williams"  : 

I  was  the  milliner 
Talked  about,  lied  about, 
Mother  of  Dora, 
Whose  strange  disappearance 
Was  charged  to  her  rearing. 
My  eye  quick  to  beauty 
Saw  much  beside  ribbons 
And  buckles  and  feathers 
And  leghorns  and  felts, 
To  set  off  sweet  faces, 
And  dark  hair  and  gold. 
One  thing  I  will  tell  you 
And  one  I  will  ask : 
The  stealers  of  husbands 
Wear  powder  and  trinkets, 
And  fashionable  hats. 
Wives,  wear  them  yourselves. 
Hats  may  make  divorces — 
They  also  prevent  them. 
Well  now,  let  me  ask  you: 
If  all  of  the  children,  born  here  in  Spoon 
River, 


52  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Had  been  reared  by  the  County,  some 
where  on  a  farm; 

And  the  fathers  and  mothers  had  been 
given  their  freedom 

To  live  and  enjoy,  change  mates  if  they 
wished, 

Do  you  think  that  Spoon  River 

Had  been  any  the  worse? 

Grim  realism  conies  in  the  story  of  the  heretic, 
"Wendell  P.  Bloyd" : 

They  first  charged  me  with  disorderly  conduct, 

There  being  no  statute  on  blasphemy. 

Later  they  locked  me  up  as  insane 

Where  I  was  beaten  to  death  by  a  Catholic  guard. 

My  offense  was  this: 

I  said  God  lied  to  Adam,  and  destined  him 

To  lead  the  life  of  a  fool, 

Ignorant  that  there  is  evil  in  the  world  as  well 

as  good. 

And  when  Adam  outwitted  God  by  eating  the  apple 
And  saw  through  the  lie, 

God  drove  him  out  of  Eden  to  keep  him  from  taking 
The  fruit  of  immortal  life. 
For  Christ's  sake,  you  sensible  people, 
Here's  what  God  Himself  says  about  it  in  the  book 

of  Genesis: 

"And  the  Lord  God  said,  Behold  the  man 
Is  become  as  one  of  us"  (a  little  envy,  you  see), 
''To   know   good   and   evil"    (The   all-is-good   lie 

exposed)  : 

"And  now  lest  he  put  forth  his  hand  and  take 
Also  of  the  tree  of  life  and  eat,  and  live  forever : 
Therefore  the  Lord  God  sent  him  forth  from  the 

garden  of  Eden." 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  53 

(The  reason  I  believe  God  crucified  His  Own  Son 
To  get  out  of  the  wretched  tangle  is,  because  it 
sounds  just  like  Him.) 

One  of  the  most  admirable  pieces  of  writing  in  this 
volume,  however,  is  found  in  Masters'  lines  to  a  sweet 
heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln  whom  he  calls  "Anne  Rut- 
ledge"  : 

Out  of  me  unworthy  and  unknown 

The  vibrations  of  deathless  music; 

"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all." 

Out  of  me  the  forgiveness  of  millions  toward  millions, 

And  the  beneficent  face  of  a  nation 

Shining  with  justice  and  truth. 

I  am  Anne  Rutledge  who  sleep  beneath  these  weeds, 

Beloved  in  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 

Wedded  to  him,  not  through  union, 

But  through  separation. 

Bloom  forever,  O  Republic, 

From  the  dust  of  my  bosom ! 

In  "Toward  the  Gulf"  Masters  demonstrates  the 
precepts  of  Whitman.  It  is  evidenced  in  the  under 
lying  spirit  of  these  poems  rather  than  in  the  actual 
form  of  expression  chosen. 

Masters  has  established  his  right  to  our  best  con 
sideration  as  a  poet  of  high  merit,  but  there  are  times 
when  some  of  his  lines  run  parallel  with  a  rather  ordi 
nary  and  not  particularly  interesting  prose  form  of 
verse.  Certainly  there  is  little  poetry  in  lines  like 
these : 

"Miranda  married  a  rich  man 

And  spent  his  money  so  fast  that  he  failed. 


54  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

She  lashed  him  with  a  scorpion  tongue 
And  made  him  believe  at  last 
With  her  incessant  reasonings 
That  he  was  a  fool  and  so  had  failed. 
In  middle  life  he  started  over  again, 
And  became  tangled  in  a  law  suit ; 
Because  of  these  things  he  killed  himself." 

But  in  "The  Awakening"  there  are  the  best  of  Mas 
ters'  lines,  lines  that  throb  and  pulsate  with  the  music 
of  real  song : 

When  you  lie  sleeping;  golden  hair 
Tossed  on  your  pillow;  sea  shell  pink 
Ears  that  nestle,  I  forbear 
A  moment  while  I  look  and  think 
How  you  are  mine  and  if  I  dare    . 
To  bend  and  kiss  you  lying  there. 

A  Raphael  in  the  flesh!     Resist 

I  cannot,  though  to  break  your  sleep 

Is  thoughtless  of  me — you  are  kissed 

And  roused  from  slumber  dreamless,  deep— 

You  rub  away  the  slumber's  mist, 

You  scold  and  almost  weep. 

It  is  too  bad  to  wake  you  so, 
Just  for  a  kiss.     But  when  awake 
You  sing  and  dance,  nor  seem  to  know 
You  slept  a  sleep  too  deep  to  break 
From  which  I  roused  you  long  ago 
For  nothing  but  my  passion's  sake — 
What  though  your  heart  should  ache ! 

It  was  while  engaged  in  the  practice  of  law  that 
Edgar  Lee  Masters  first  began  to  write  verse.  He  had, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  55 

however,  been  writing  for  many  years  poetry  of  no 
especial  significance  until  his  Spoon  River  poems. 

Masters  was  born  in  Garnett,  Kansas,  on  August 
23,  1868,  the  son  of  Hardin  Wallace.  He  received 
his  education  in  a  high  school  and  Knox  College,  Illi 
nois,  after  which  he  studied  law  in  his  father's  office. 
He  was  admitted  in  1891  to  the  Bar,  and  is  at  present 
a  member  of  the  Chicago  and  Illinois  State  Bar  Asso 
ciations.  He  was  married  to  Miss  Helen  M.  Jenkins 
of  Chicago  in  1898. 

His  works  include  "A  Book  of  Verses,"  "Maxi 
milian,"  "The  New  Star  Chamber  and  Other  Essays," 
"Blood  of  the  Prophets,"  "Althea,"  and  "The  Trifler," 
"Spoon  River  Anthology,"  "Toward  the  Gulf,"  and 
"Songs  and  Satires."  He  has  contributed  articles  and 
essays  on  political  and  constitutional  subjects  to  vari 
ous  periodicals  and  magazines. 


CHAPTER  VII 
Vachel  Lindsay 

The  nearest  approach  that  we  in  America  have  to 
the  minstrel  of  historic  times  is  Vachel  Lindsay. 

This  poet  and  troubadour  has  tramped  from  his 
home  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  over  the  prairies  and 
through  Kansas  wheat  fields,  over  the  mountains  of 
Colorado  and  those  vast  plains  and  into  cities  of  tow 
ered  brick  and  stone  that  make  up  our  country,  sing 
ing  his  own  songs,  and  "preaching  the  gospel  of 
beauty." 

The  cloak  of  the  minstrel  has  fittingly  descended 
upon  Lindsay's  shoulders,  and  he  has  been  able  to  stir 
his  listeners  much  in  that  manner  as  crowds  in  other 
days  were  stirred  when  they  gathered  behind  the  moat- 
protected  castle  walls  to  listen  to  the  minstrel's  lay. 

Mr.  Lindsay  is  poet  through  and  through.  An  edi 
torial  in  Collier's  Weekly  says :  "Mr.  Lindsay  doesn't 
need  to  write  verse  to  be  a  poet.  His  prose  is  poetry — 
poetry  straight  from  the  soil  of  America  that  is,  and  of 
a  nobler  America  that  is  to  be." 

There  is  an  interesting  comparison  in  description 
between  Carl  Sandburg  and  Vachel  Lindsay's  "Poca- 
hontas."  Carl  Sandburg  says:  "Pocahontas'  body, 
lovely  as  a  poplar,  sweet  as  a  red  haw  in  November 
or  a  pawpaw  in  May — did  she  wonder?  does  she  re- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  57 

member — in  the  dust — in  the  cool  tombs?" — Vachel 
Lindsay  says: 

Her  skin  was  rosy  copper-red. 

And  high  she  held  her  beauteous  head. 

Her  step  was  like  a  rustling  leaf : 

Her  heart  a  nest,  untouched  of  grief. 

She  dreamed  of  sons  like  Powhatan, 

And  through  her  blood  the  lightning  ran. 

Love-cries  with  the  birds  she  sung, 

Birdlike 

In  the  grape-vine  swung. 

The  Forest,  arching  low  and  wide 

Gloried  in  its  Indian  bride. 

Rolfe,  that  dim  adventurer, 

Had  not  come  a  courtkr. 

John  Rolfe  is  not  our  ancestor. 

We  rise  from  out  the  soul  of  her 

Held  in  native  wonderland 

While  the  sun's  rays  kissed  her  hand, 

In  the  springtime, 

In  Virginia, 

Our  mother,  Pocahontas. 

There  are  none  of  our  American  poets  of  today 
whose  work  epitomizes  more  strongly  Americanism 
than  that  of  Vachel  Lindsay.  To  witness,  "Niagara." 
Here  is  a  poem  the  very  title  of  which  expresses  the 
grandeur,  vigor,  and  inexpressible  beauty  of  our  nat 
ural  masterpiece : 

Within  the  town  of  Buffalo 

Are  prosy  men  with  leaden  eyes, 


58  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Like  ants  they  worry  to  and  fro 
(Important  men,  in  Buffalo). 
But  only  twenty  miles  away 
A  deathless  glory  is  at  play : 
Niagara,  Niagara. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Within  the  town  of  Buffalo 

Are  stores  with  garnets,  sapphires,  pearls, 

Rubies,   emeralds  aglow, — 

Opal  chains  in  Buffalo, 

Cherished  symbols  of  success. 

They  value  not  your  rainbow  dress : 

Niagara,  Niagara. 

What  marching  men  of  Buffalo 
Flood  the  streets  in  rash  crusade? 
Fools-to-free-the-world,  they  go, 
Primeval  hearts  from  Buffalo. 
Red  cataracts  of  France  to-day 
Awake,  three  thousand  miles  away 
An  echo  of  Niagara, 
The  cataract  Niagara. 

Mr.  Lindsay  believes  in  the  poetry  of  the  spoken 
word  and  that  its  beauty  and  charm  lies  in  the  spoken 
lines,  in  beauty  of  conception.  He  has  carried  out  his 
idea  in  so  many  of  those  poems  where  one  must  hear 
the  spoken  word  to  get  the  proper  effect.  This  is 
particularly  demonstrated  in  "Two  Old  Crows,"  and 
in  his  poem  games,  "The  King  of  Yellow  Butterflies," 
"The  Potatoes'  Dance"  and  "The  Booker  Washington 
Trilogy."  Those  splendid  lines  about  Simon  Legree 
run: 

"I  like  your  style,  so  wicked  and  free. 

Come  sit  and  share  my  throne  with  me. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  59 

And  let  us  bark  and  revel." 
And  there  they  sit  and  gnash  their  teeth, 
And  each  one  wears  a  hop-vine  wreath. 
They  are  matching  pennies  and  shooting  craps, 
They  are  playing  poker  and  taking  naps. 
And  old  Legree  is  fat  and  fine: 
He  eats  the  fire,  he  drinks  the  wine — 
Blood  and  burning  turpentine — 

Down,  down  with  the  Devil; 

Down,  down  with  the  Devil ; 

Down,  down  with  the  Devil. 

In  sharp  contrast  to  poems  of  this  nature  is  "The 
Chinese  Nightingale,"  which  Mr.  Lindsay  calls  "A 
Song  in  Chinese  Tapestries,"  the  first  poem  in  his  re 
cently  published  book,  "The  Chinese  Nightingale  and 
Other  Poems,"  and  which  was  awarded  the  Levinson 
Prize  by  Harriet  Monroe,  as  the  best  contribution  to 
"Poetry:  A  Magazine  of  Verse,"  for  the  year  1915. 
This  is  a  piece  of  writing  gorgeous  as  the  most  bril 
liant  of  Chinese  tapestries  which  the  poet  might  have 
followed : 

There  were  golden  lilies  by  the  bay  and  river, 

And  silver  lilies  and  tiger-lilies, 

And  tinkling  wind-bells  in  the  gardens  of  the  town 

By  the  black-lacquer  gate 

Where  walked  in  state 

The  kind  king  Chang 

And  his  sweet-heart  mate.  .  .  . 

With  his  flag-born  dragon 

And  his  crown  of  pearl  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  jade, 

And  his  nightingale  reigning  in  the  mulberry  shade, 

And  sailors  and  soldiers  on  the  sea-sands  brown, 


6o 

And  priests  who  bowed  them  down  to  your  song — 
By  the  city  called  Han,  the  peacock  town, 
By  the  city  called  Han,  the  nightingale  town, 
The  nightingale  town. 

The  poem  ends — 

Life  is  a  loom,  weaving  illusion  .  .  . 

I  remember,  I  remember 

There  were  ghostly  veils  and  laces  .  .  . 

There  were  ghostly  bowery  places  .  .  . 

With  lovers'  ardent  faces 

Bending  to  one  another, 

Speaking  each  his  part. 

They  infinitely  echo 

In  the  red  cave  of  my  heart. 

"Sweetheart,  sweetheart,  sweetheart," 

They  said  to  one  another. 

They  spoke,  I  think,  of  perils  past. 

They  spoke,  I  think,  of  peace  at  last. 

One  thing  I  remember: 

"Spring  came  on  forever, 

Spring  came  on  forever," 

Said  the  Chinese  nightingale. 

Another  side  of  Mr.  Lindsay's  poetry  is  given  by 
Miss  Rittenhouse,  writing  in  The  Bookman : 

"At  the  Chicago  Little  Theatre,  about  a  year  ago, 
Vachel  Lindsay,  always  the  innovator,  staged  one  of 
his  most  picturesque  experiments — a  dance  accompani 
ment  to  several  of  his  poems,  which  he  chanted  in  lieu 
of  music.  The  dancer  was  Miss  Eleanor  Dougherty, 
who  had  first  improvised  an  interpretation  of  Mr. 
Lindsay's  poems  when  they  were  both  guests  at  the 
home  of  Mrs.  William  Vaughn  Moody. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  61 

"The  idea  of  dancing  to  the  rhythms  of  poetry  rather 
than  to  music,  to  give  a  visual  embodiment  of  the 
poet's  idea  while  he  himself  chanted  the  lines,  held  such 
possibilities  that  much  interest  was  created  by  the  ex 
periment.  Mr.  Lindsay  describes  it  at  some  length  in 
his  latest  volume,  'The  Chinese  Nightingale,'  but  mod 
estly  speaks  of  it  as  an  attempt  to  render  Toem 
Games,'  whereas  it  is  much  more  than  this,  so  much 
more,  indeed,  that  it  holds  the  possibility  of  becoming 
a  distinct  and  beautiful  art. 

"During  his  recent  visit  to  New  York,  Mr.  Lind 
say  and  Miss  Dougherty  gave  two  programmes,  one 
at  the  Women's  University  Club  and  one  at  the  Cos 
mopolitan  Club.  Several  of  the  lighter  fantasies,  such 
as  The  King  of  the  Yellow  Butterflies,'  the  'Potato 
Dance,'  and  'Aladdin  and  the  Jinn,'  were  given  with 
charming  effect,  while  'King  Solomon'  offered  an  op 
portunity  for  more  dramatic  presentation.  As  rhyth 
mic  speech  would  naturally  outrun  its  accompaniment 
in  the  dance  or  pantomime,  Mr.  Lindsay  uses  repeti 
tion  wherever  it  is  needed,  and  these  repetitions  are 
immensely  effective,  enforcing  the  beauty  of  the  lines 
while  giving  the  dancer  leisure  for  their  interpreta 
tion.  To  be  sure  Vachel  Lindsay's  work  is  remark 
able  for  its  rhythms,  and  therefore  lends  itself  par 
ticularly  well  to  chanting,  but  any  poetry  that  possesses 
beauty  of  tone  and  picturesqueness  is  susceptible  of 
dance  interpretation.  The  field  is  unlimited  and,  as 
Mr.  Lindsay  suggests,  could  be  admirably  applied  to 
classic  poetry.  Why  should  we  not  see  the  school  of 
Mrs.  Florence  Fleming  Noyes  or  the  Duncan  Dancers 
interpret  'Atalanta  in  Calydon'?  The  rhythms  of 


62  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

poetry,  as  accompaniment,  may  be  made  as  rich  and 
harmonious  as  music,  and  instead  of  detracting  from 
the  beauty  of  the  poet's  work,  such  a  representation 
may  enhance  it." 

William  Lyon  Phelps  finds  in  the  best  work  of 
Vachel  Lindsay  two  qualities :  "The  zest  for  beauty  and 
the  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness." 

"Lindsay  made  a  soap-box  tour  for  the  Anti-Saloon 
League,  preaching  at  the  same  time  the  Gospel  of 
Beauty,"  says  Mr.  Phelps.  "As  a  rule,  reformers  are 
lacking  in  the  two  things  most  sedulously  cultivated 
by  commercial  travellers  and  life-insurance  agents,  tact 
and  humor.  If  these  interesting  orders  of  the  Knights 
of  the  Road  were  as  lacking  in  geniality  as  the  typical 
reformer,  they  would  lose  their  jobs.  And  yet  fishers 
of  men,  for  that  is  what  all  reformers  are,  try  to  fish 
without  bait,  at  the  same  time  making  much  loud  and 
offensive  noise.  Then  they  are  amazed  at  the  callous 
indifference  of  humanity  to  'great  moral  issues !' ' 

Nicholas  Vachel  Lindsay  was  the  name  under  which 
this  poet  was  christened,  though  "Nicholas"  has  long 
been  abandoned,  and  Vachel  is  pronounced  to  rhyme 
with  Rachel.  He  was  born  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  on 
November  10,  1879,  and  for  three  years  was  a  stu 
dent  at  Hiram  College  in  Ohio,  followed  by  a  course 
in  art  which  extended  for  five  years  in  Chicago  and 
New  York. 

Between  1905  and  1910  Vachel  Lindsay  was  the 
creator  of  strange  pictures,  a  lecturer  on  various  topics, 
and  a  writer  of  unique  "bulletins." 

In  1910  he  took  to  the  highways  and  by-ways,  be 
ginning  his  long  pilgrimages,  walking  in  winter  and 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  63 

spring  through  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  Florida  and 
in  the  North  as  well. 

As  a  medium  of  exchange  he  carried  simply  his 
poems,  printed  on  single  sheets,  which  he  exchanged 
for  lodging  and  food.  It  was  in  the  summer  of  1912 
that  he  walked  from  Illinois  into  New  Mexico. 

In  a  letter  to  the  author  of  this  book,  Mr.  Lindsay 
says,  "But  bear  in  mind  that  my  tramp-days  were 
mixed  with  the  rest.  I  walked  in  the  South  in  the 
spring  of  1906,  in  the  East  in  the  spring  of  1908  and 
the  West  in  the  spring  of  1912.  There  is  a  very  defi 
nite  progress  of  ideas  in  the  accounts  of  these  three 
regions.  Please  remember  'The  Handy  Guide  for 
Beggars'  begins  the  story.  People  get  so  very  wide 
of  the  mark  I  am  perhaps  getting  finicky  on  this  matter 
of  chronology." 

Vachel  Lindsay's  "Song  of  the  Congo"  is  among 
the  best  known  of  his  works : 

Fat  black  bucks  in  a  wine  barrel  room, 

Barrel-house  kings,  with  feet  unstable, 

Sagged  and  reeled  and  pounded  on  the  table, 

Pounded  on  the  table, 

Beat  an  empty  barrel  with  the  handle  of  a  broom, 

Hard  as  they  were  able, 

Boom,  boom,  boom. 

With  a  silk  umbrella  and  the  handle  of  a  broom, 

Boomlay,  boomlay,  boomlay,  Boom. 

Then  I  had  religion,  then  I  had  a  vision, 

I  could  not  turn  from  their  revel  in  derision. 

Then  I  saw  the  Congo,  creeping  through  the  black, 

Cutting  through  the  forest  with  a  golden  track, 

Then  along  that  river  bank 


64  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

A  thousand  miles 

Tattooed  cannibals  danced  in  files; 

Then  I  heard  the  boom  of  the  blood-lust  song 

And  a  thigh-bone  beating  on  a  tin-pan  gong.  .  .  . 

A  negro  fairyland  swung  into  view, 

A  minstrel  river 

Where  dreams  come  true. 

The  ebony  palace  soared  on  high 

Through  the  blossoming  trees  to  the  evening  sky. 

The  inland  porches  and  casements  shone 

With  gold  and  ivory  and  ekphant-bone.  .  .  . 

Just  then  from  the  doorway,  as  fat  as  shoats, 
Came  the  cake-walk  princes  in  their  long  red  coats, 
Canes  with  a  brilliant  lacquer  shine, 
And  tall  silk  hats  that  were  red  as  wine. 
And  they  pranced  with  their  butterfly  partners  there, 
Coal-black  maidens  with  pearls  in  their  hair, 
Knee-skirts  trimmed  with  the  jessamine  sweet, 
And  bells  on  their  ankles  and  little  black  feet. 

Vachel  Lindsay's  published  works  include  "The 
Congo,"  "General  William  Booth  Enters  into 
Heaven,"  "Adventures  While  Preaching  the  Gospel  of 
Beauty,"  and  "The  Chinese  Nightingale." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HENRY  VAN  DYKE,   EDWIN   MARKHAM,   CALE  YOUNG 
RICE,    CONRAD  AIKEN 

Henry  Vcm  Dyke 

There  is  a  goodly  list  of  writings  to  the  credit  of 
Henry  Van  Dyke,  who  has  given  such  beautiful  essays, 
prose  poems  and  poetry  to  a  large  following  of  readers. 

This  popular  essayist,  certainly  one  of  the  most 
widely  read  in  this  country,  was  born  in  Germantown, 
Pa.,  on  November  10,  1852,  the  son  of  the  Reverend 
Henry  Jackson  and  Henrietta  Ashmead.  He  was 
graduated  from  the  Polytechnic  Institute  of  Brooklyn 
in  1869,  and  in  1873  was  awarded  his  Bachelor  of  Arts 
degree  at  Princeton  University. 

Dr.  Van  Dyke  continued  his  studies  at  Princeton 
Theological  Seminary,  1877,  University  of  Berlin, 
1877-9,  Washington  and  Jefferson  University,  1902, 
Wesleyan,  1903,  Pennsylvania,  1906.  Ellen  Reid  of 
Baltimore  became  his  wife  on  December  13,  1881,  Van 
Dyke  having  been  ordained  in  the  Presbyterian  min 
istry  in  1877.  He  was  professor  of  English  literature 
at  Princeton  until  his  appointment  by  President  Wilson 
as  minister  to  the  Netherlands  and  Luxembourg,  which 
honor  he  resigned  after  having  filled  the  post  with 
distinction  for  several  years. 

65 


66  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Dr.  Van  Dyke's  "Blue  Flower,"  "Ruling  Passion" 
and  "Fisherman's  Luck"  have  become  famous  for  their 
value  as  essays,  but  "The  Builders  and  Other  Poems" 
contains  some  of  the  most  significant  verses  which 
have  resulted  from  his  poetical  endeavors.  "An  An 
gler's  Wish"  runs: 

I. 

When  tulips  bloom  in  Union  Square, 
And  timid  breaths  of  vernal  air 

Go  wandering  down  the  dusty  town, 
Like  children  lost  in  Vanity  Fair; 

When  every  long,  unlovely  row 
Of  westward  houses  stands  aglow, 

And  kads  the  eyes  toward  sunset  skies 
Beyond  the  hills  where  green  trees  grow; 

Then  weary  seems  the  street  parade, 
And  weary  books,  and  weary  trade : 
I'm  only  wishing  to  go  a-fishing; 
For  this  the  month  of  May  was  made. 

II. 

I  guess  the  pussy-willows  now 
Are  creeping  out  on  every  bough 

Along  the  brook;  and  robins  look 
For  early  worms  behind  the  plough. 

The  thistle-birds  have  changed  their  dun, 
For  yellow  coats,  to  match  the  sun 
And  in  the  same  array  of  flame 
The  Dandelion  Show's  begun. 

The  flocks  of  young  anemones 

Are  dancing  round  the  budding  trees: 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  67 

Who  can  help  wishing  to  go  a-fishing 
In  days  as  full  of  joy  as  these? 

III. 

I  think  the  meadow-lark's  clear  sound 
Leaks  upward  slowly  from  the  ground, 

While  on  the  wing,  the  bluebirds  ring 
Their  wedding-bells  to  woods  around. 

The  flirting  chewink  calls  his  dear 
Behind  the  bush;  and  very  near, 

Where  water  flows,  where  green  grass  grows, 
Song-sparrows  gently  sing,  "Good  cheer." 

And,  best  of  all,  through  twilight's  calm 
The  hermit-thrush  repeats  his  psalm. 

How  much  I'm  wishing  to  go  a-fishing 
In  days  so  sweet  with  music's  balm ! 

IV. 

'T  is  not  the  proud  desire  of  mine ; 
I  ask  for  nothing  superfine ; 

No  heavy  weight,  no  salmon  great, 
To  break  the  record,  or  my  line: 

Only  an  idle  little  stream, 
Whose  amber  waters  softly  gleam, 

Where  I  may  wade,  through  woodland  shade, 
And  cast  the  fly,  and  loaf,  and  dream : 

Only  a  trout  or  two,  to  dart 

From  foaming  pools,  and  try  my  art: 

No  more  I'm  wishing — old-fashioned  fishing, 
And  just  a  day  on  Nature's  heart. 


68  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Dr.  Van  Dyke's  works,  both  prose  and  poetry,  in 
clude  "The  Reality  of  Religion,"  "The  Story  of  the 
Psalms,"  "The  National  Sin  of  Literary  Piracy,"  "The 
Poetry  of  Tennyson,"  "Sermons  to  Young  Men," 
"The  Christ  Child  in  Art,"  "Little  Rivers,"  "The 
Other  Wise  Man,"  "The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt," 
"The  First  Christmas  Tree,"  "The  Builders  and  Other 
Poems,"  "Ships  and  Havens,"  "The  Lost  Word," 
"The  Gospel  for  a  World  of  Sin,"  "Fisherman's 
Luck,"  "The  Toiling  of  Felix,"  "The  Poetry  of  the 
Psalms,"  "The  Friendly  Year,"  "The  Ruling  Pas 
sion,"  "Preface  to  Counsel  on  Books  and  Reading," 
"The  Blue  Flower,"  "The  Open  Door,"  "Music  and 
Other  Poems,"  "The  School  of  Life,"  "Essays  in  Ap 
plication,"  "The  Spirit  of  Christmas,"  "Americanism 
of  Washington,"  "Days  Off,"  "The  House  of  Rim- 
mon,"  "Out-of-Doors  in  the  Holy  Land,"  "Le  Genie 
de  1'Amerique,"  "The  White  Bees  and  Other  Poems," 
"Collected  Poems,"  "The  Sad  Shepherd,"  "The  Man 
sion,"  "The  Unknown  Quantity." 

He  was  also  editor  of  "The  Gateway  Series  of 
English  Texts,"  "Select  Poems  of  Tennyson,"  "Little 
Masterpieces  of  English  Poetry"  (6  volumes). 

Dr.  Van  Dyke  makes  his  home  at  Avalon,  Princeton, 
New  Jersey. 

Edwin  Markham 

The  name  of  Edwin  Markham  will  be  ever  asso 
ciated  with  that  world-famous  poem,  "The  Man  with 
the  Hoe,"  which  found  its  inspiration  in  Millet's  fa 
mous  painting,  and  which  was  first  published  in  1899: 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  69 

Bowed  by  the  weight  of  centuries,  he  leans 
Upon  his  hoe  and  gazes  on  the  ground, 
The  emptiness  of  ages  in  his  face, 
And  on  his  back  the  burden  of  the  world. 
Who  made  him  dead  to  rapture  and  despair, 
A  thing  that  grieves  not  and  that  never  hopes, 
Stolid  and  stunned,  a  brother  to  the  ox? 
Who  loosened  and  let  down  this  brutal  jaw? 
Whose  was  the  hand  that  slanted  back  this  brow  ? 
Whose  breath  blew  out  the  light  within  this  brain  ? 

Is  this  the  Thing  the  Lord  God  made  and  gave 

To  have  dominion  over  sea  and  land; 

To  trace  the  stars  and  search  the  heavens  for  power; 

To  feel  the  passion  of  Eternity? 

Is  this  the  Dream  He  dreamed  who  shaped  the  suns 

And  marked  their  ways  upon  the  ancient  deep  ? 

Down  all  the  stretch  of  Hell  to  its  last  gulf 

There  is  no  shape  more  terrible  than  this — 

More  tongued  with  censure  of  the  world's  blind  greed — 

More  filled  with  signs  and  portents  for  the  soul — 

More  fraught  with  danger  to  the  universe. 

O  masters,  lords  and  rulers  in  all  lands, 
How  will  the  Future  reckon  with  this  Man? 
How  answer  his  brute  question  in  that  hour 
When  whirlwinds  of  rebellion  shake  the  world? 
How  will  it  be  with  kingdoms  and  with  kings — 
With  those  who  shaped  him  to  the  thing  he  is — 
When  this  dumb  Terror  shall  reply  to  God 

After  the  silence  of  the  centuries? 

• 

This  poem  was  hailed  as  "the  battle-cry  of  the  next 
thousand  years." 


70  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

In  1901  "Lincoln"  appeared — a  truly  splendid  study 
worthy  of  the  man  who  had  voiced  Democracy's  plea 
in  "The  Man  with  the  Hoe."  Among  various  poets' 
pictures  of  our  beloved  hero,  these  lines  of  Mr.  Mark- 
ham's  have  no  superior: 

LINCOLN,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

When  the  Norn  Mother  saw  the  Whirlwind  Hour 
Greatening  and  darkening  as  it  hurried  on, 
She  left  the  Heaven  of  Heroes  and  came  down 
To  make  a  man  to  meet  the  mortal  need. 

She  took  the  tried  clay  of  the  common  road — 
Clay  warm  yet  with  the  ancient  heat  of  Earth, 
Dashed  through  it  all  a  strain  of  prophecy ; 
Tempered  the  heap  with  thrill  of  human  tears ; 
Then  mixed  a  laughter  with  the  serious  stuff. 
Into  the  shape  she  breathed  a  flame  to  light 
That  tender,  tragic,  ever-changing  face. 
Here  was  a  man  to  hold  against  the  world, 
A  man  to  match  the  mountains  and  the  sea. 
The  color  of  the  ground  was  in  him,  the  red  earth; 
The  smack  and  tang  of  elemental  things : 
The  rectitude  and  patience  of  the  cliff; 
The  good-will  of  the  rain  that  loves  all  leaves; 
The  friendly  welcome  of  the  wayside  well ; 
The  courage  of  the  bird  that  dares  the  sea ; 
The  gladness  of  the  wind  that  shakes  the  corn ; 
The  mercy  of  the  snow  that  hides  all  scars; 
The  secrecy  of  streams  that  make  their  way 
Beneath  the  mountain  to  the  rifted  rock; 
The  undelaying  justice  of  the  light 
That  gives  as  freely  to  the  shrinking  flower 
As  to  the  great  oak  flaring  to  the  wind — 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  71 

So  came  the  Captain  with  the  thinking  heart ; 
And  when  the  judgment  thunder  split  the  house, 
Wrenching  the  rafters  from  their  ancient  rest, 
He  held  the  ridgepole  up,  and  spiked  again 
The  rafters  of  the  Home.     He  held  his  place — 
Held  the  long  purpose  like  a  growing  tree — 
Held  on  through  blame  and  faltered  not  at  praise. 
And  when  he  fell  in  whirlwind,  he  went  down 
As  when  a  lordly  cedar,  green  with  boughs, 
Goes  down  with  a  great  shout  uoon  the  hills, 
And  leaves  a  lonesome  place  against  the  sky. 

Mr.  Markham  has  never  been  a  prolific  writer  as 
poets  of  today  go,  but  his  verse  has  attained  a  dis 
tinction  and  fineness  that  some  of  our  younger  writers 
might  do  well  to  pattern  from. 

It  was  in  March,  1915,  that  Mr.  Markham  published 
"The  Shoes  of  Happiness,"  so  called  from  the  longest 
poem  it  contained — a  long  wait  from  the  date  of  his 
prior  volume  of  poems  for  those  who  love  and  have 
followed  so  closely  his  career. 

California  extended  an  unusual  honor  to  Mr.  Mark- 
ham,  when  the  evening  of  April  3Oth  was  set  aside  as 
Markham  Evening,  and  the  poet  was  asked  to  read 
from  his  poems.  At  this  time  "Virgila"  from  "The 
Shoes  of  Happiness,"  which  had  been  set  to  music  by 
Edith  Haines-Kuester,  the  well-known  American  com 
poser,  was  sung  for  the  first  time. 

"Virgila"  reads  as  follows: 

Had  we  two  gone  down  the  world  together, 
I  had  made  fair  ways  for  the  feet  of  song, 

And  the  world's  fang  been  but  a  foam-soft  feather, 
The  world  that  works  us  wrong. 


72  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

With  you  the  cloud  of  my  life  had  broken, 
And  the  heavens  rushed  up  to  their  silver  height : 

That  lone  last  peak  of  my  soul  had  spoken, 
That  last  peak  lost  in  sight. 

If  you  had  but  stayed  when  the  old  sweet  wonder 
Was  a  precious  pain  in  my  pulsing  side! 

Ah,  why  did  you  hurry  our  lives  asunder — 
You,  born  to  be  my  bride? 

What  sent  it  upon  me — my  soul  importunes- 
All  the  grief  of  the  world  in  a  little  span, 

All  the  tears  and  fears,  all  the  fates  and  fortunes 
That  the  heart  holds  for  man? 

Is  this,  then,  the  pain  that  the  first  gods  kneaded 
Into  all  the  joy  that  the  strange  world  brings? 

Did  the  tears  fall  into  the  heap  unheeded, 
These  tears  in  mortal  things? 

Edwin  Markham  was  born  in  Oregon  City,  Oregon, 
on  April  23,  1852.  He  went  to  California  in  1857, 
where  he  worked  as  a  farmer,  then  as  a  blacksmith, 
and  herded  cattle  and  sheep  during  his  boyhood  days. 
Upon  entering  San  Jose  Normal  School  he  specialized 
in  ancient  and  modern  languages,  following  this  work 
in  two  western  institutions  of  learning.  He  was  mar 
ried  to  Miss  Anna  Catherine  Murphy  in  1897.  He 
was  principal  and  superintendent  of  schools  in  Cali 
fornia  until  1889,  and  has  written  poems  since  his 
early  boyhood  for  magazines  and  newspapers  through 
out  the  United  States, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  73 

Cole  Young  Rice 

Cale  Young  Rice  is  accredited  with  having  written 
some  of  the  most  excellent  poetry  of  the  last  decade 
as  well  as  some  of  the  best  poetic  dramas  that  American 
literature  reveals. 

Dixon,  Kentucky,  was  the  birthplace  of  this  poet 
whose  many  lyrics  have  appeared  in  publications 
throughout  the  country. 

"Now  doubtless  it  would  be  edifying  just  here  to 
tell  you  that  I  was  preternaturally  bookish  at  school 
and  that  I  had  devoured  all  the  libraries  within  range 
by  the  time  I  was  eight,"  says  Mr.  Rice.  "Or,  other 
wise,  that  I  rebelled  against  school  authorities  and  be 
gan  individual  poetic  tendencies  beyond  the  scholastic 
pale.  But  nothing  is  further  from  the  truth.  I  ac 
cepted  school  as  a  necessary  evil  of  life — but  also  as  a 
place  to  meet  and  conspire  with  other  children  to  suck 
the  orange  of  existence  dry  of  'fun.'  Some  remem 
brances  I  seem  to  have  of  affectionate  teachers  wish 
ing  to  have  me  'really'  study  and  lead  classes;  but  I 
was  much  too  busy  trying  to  win  at  tops  and  marbles, 
baseball  and  football,  skating,  swimming,  dancing, 
hunting  and  fishing,  to  be  lured  from  what  I  regarded 
as  the  chief  end  of  man.  And  poetry,  except  the  poetry 
of  life,  which  made  me  shudder  or  thrill  with  delight 
and  passion,  I  knew  only  from  class  recitation  or  from 
the  Biblical  influence  which  was  so  salutarily  thrown 
about  me. 

"At  fourteen  or  fifteen,  however,  I  did  begin  to 
study,  and  to  read  a  bit,  and  entered  Cumberland  Uni 
versity  where  I  remained  four  happy  years, 


74  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"But  such  years  do  not  last.  So  before  I  knew  it  I 
was  through  with  them  and  suddenly  aware  that  I  knew 
nothing  about  the  Universe,  or  the  direction  I  must 
take  in  it.  Then  to  add  to  my  perplexities,  actual  and 
philosophical,  ambition  began  its  game  in  me.  To  Har 
vard  therefore  I  went — not,  like  Saul,  to  find  my  fath 
er's  asses,  but  to  discover  just  how  much  of  a  long- 
ears  I  was  myself.  And  like  Saul  I  found  a  kingdom. 
For  not  only  did  my  deeper  reading  of  poetry  begin 
there  but  as  I  was  taking  my  degrees  in  Philosophy 
I  not  only  found  mental  freedom  philosophically  and 
religiously,  but  laid  the  basis  for  whatever  poetic 
vision  of  life  as  a  whole  I  had.  So  to  Poetry,  after  a 
year's  teaching,  I  was  wedded.  And  though  the  two  of 
us  have  undergone  all  the  suffering  and  obloquy  inci 
dental  to  the  poetic  life  in  America  where  the  struggle 
for  great  poetic  achievement  is,  I  believe,  more  diffi 
cult  than  in  any  other  country,  neither  has  sought  the 
divorce  court. 

"Of  the  other  wedding  in  my  life,  to  the  present 
Alice  Hegan  Rice,  I  have  said  enough  in  the  songs  I 
have  written  to  her.  With  her  I  have  seen  much  of 
the  strangeness  and  beauty  of  the  world,  for  we  have 
travelled  much,  and  all  who  know  her  know  what  a 
companion  she  is. 

"My  early  efforts  in  poetry  ?  Well,  perhaps  I  should 
say  first  that  I  was  fortunate  in  escaping  academic 
guidance,  for  all  that  I  know  of  that  art  was  instinctive 
or  learned  out  of  school.  Some  present  day  radicals, 
whose  excesses  or  pretences  I  have  not  swallowed,  have 
thought  me  conservative ;  and  many  conservatives  dur 
ing  the  two  decades  of  my  poetic  day  have  scored 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  75 

me  for  being  too  free  or  radical.  So  if  I  must  accept 
a  tag,  I  suppose  it  must  be  that  of  liberalism — by  which 
I  mean  a  readiness  to  take  poetry  of  any  real  kind  from 
whatever  source  it  comes — for  any  one  creed  can  pro 
duce  all  too  little  of  it.  But  the  truth  is  that  I  think 
those  distinctions,  like  the  distinctions  between  real 
ists,  romanticists  and  classicists  are  wearisome  and 
dangerous  for  the  writer  to  get  too  conscious  of.  A 
poet  must  take  his  poetry  from  all  of  life  if  he  wishes 
to  write  all  his  life — or  any  long  portion  of  it.  Self- 
consciousness  and  creed  make  for  exhaustion. 

"It  was  some  such  faith  as  this  together  with  the  be 
lief  that  the  supreme  rule  of  poetic  art,  technically,  is  to 
let  poetic  emotion  and  instinct  rather  than  creed  mould 
the  form  of  a  poem,  which  has  always  guided  me.  As 
a  consequence  my  earliest  efforts — in  a  now  extinct 
volume,  'From  Dusk  to  Dusk' — were  often  of  the 
crude  free  verse  sort  I  condemn  to-day.  But  I  soon 
learned  that  even  free  verse  rhythms,  in  order  to  be 
truly  poetic,  must  not  be  out  of  harmony  with  the 
immemorially  practised  principles  of  verse  music. 

"My  early  difficulties  with  the  poetic  drama  are 
what  they  would  be  today.  I  struggled  to  get  the  right 
dramatic  material  with  a  background  that  would  be 
poetically  inspiring;  to  do  the  fundamental  thinking 
necessary  to  construct  a  modern  logical  play;  and  to 
write  lines  in  the  natural  un-Elizabethan  syntax  which 
modernity  and  sincerity  demand;  yet  to  make  sure 
they  had  the  true  poetic  quality.  To  do  this  success 
fully  is,  I  think,  the  finest  achievement  possible  to  a 
poet. 

"What    has    contemporary    American    poetry    ac- 


;6  OUR  POETS  'OF  TODAY 

complished?  What  is  its  influence?  What  its  future? 
My  answer  is  that  I  think « the  achievement  of  this 
poetry,  against  very  great  odds,  has  been  splendid. 

"In  1900  almost  no  portion  of  the  public  read  mod 
ern  poetry,  it  was  not  found  on  the  shelves  of  the  book 
stores  or  libraries,  and  that  poetry  of  great  signifi 
cance  could  be  written  by  an  American  was  beyond 
the  conception  of  publishers,  editors  and  public  alike. 
Has  a  change  come? 

"Yes — and  no.  America  is  not  yet  a  poet's  paradise, 
and  will  never  be  except  for  the  poet  from  abroad,  who 
so  easily  finds  exploitation  here.  But  since  the  early 
years  of  the  century  the  public  has  gradually  become 
more  interested  in  this  primal  art,  the  public  libraries 
have  had  increasing  demands  for  verse;  and  finally, 
since  some  very  fine  poets  have  arisen  in  America  as 
well  as  abroad,  an  interest  has  culminated  which  has 
made  it  possible  for  the  most  freakish  of  freak  verse 
writers  to  get  in  the  limelight — and  how  they  have 
danced ! 

"A  reaction,  as  was  inevitable,  has  set  in,  and  there 
is  now  a  saner  tendency  to  put  the  freaks  in  the  side 
show. 

"What  influence  American  poetry  of  today  has  had 
in  determining  America's  present  idealistic  attitude 
toward  the  world,  no  one  can  say.  In  1914  I  expressed 
the  belief,  in  a  preface  to  'Collected  Plays  and  Poems,' 
that  the  future  spirit  of  America  and  of  American  art 
would  be  internationalistic — or  broadly  human.  To 
that  belief  I  still  hold.  The  world's  greatest  poets — 
Shakespeare,  Coleridge,  Shelley,  Keats,  Browning — 
have  never  striven  to  be  merely  nationalist  or  of  the 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  77 

soil.  They  have  but  sought  the  most  poetic  soil  their 
genius  was  capable  of  tilling,  and  have  tilled  it  with 
whatever  national  characteristics  they  possessed.  So  I 
believe  the  American  poets  of  the  future  will  seek 
whatever  in  America  or  in  the  world  is  poetically  sig 
nificant;  for  between  provinciality  and  universality 
there  can  be  but  one  choice.  The  American  of  the 
future  who  does  not  shed  his  provinciality  and  write 
for  mankind,  may  attain  success  but  not  immortality. 
Only  the  provincial  which  has  been  of  universal  im 
portance  to  the  culture  of  mankind — like  the  Hebraic 
or  the  Greek — can  abide;  and  America,  I  fear,  has  no 
such  provinciality." 

A  typical  example  of  Mr.  Rice's  writing  appeared  in 
The  Bellman,  that  worthy  journal  where  much  esti 
mable  poetry  is  published,  and  from  which  the  follow 
ing  is  quoted : 

AFTER  THEIR  PARTING 
(A  Woman  Speaks) 

You  know  that  rock  on  a  rocky  coast, 
Where  the  moon  came  up,  a  ruined  ghost, 
Distorted  until  her  shape  almost 

Seemed  breaking? 
Came  up  like  a  phantom  silently 
And  dropped  her  shroud  on  the  red  night  sea, 
Then  walked,  a  spectral  mystery, 

Unwaking? 

You  know  this?    Then  go  back  some  day, 
When  I  have  gone  the  moonless  way, 
To  that  dark  rock  whereon  we  lay 
And  waited; 


;8  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

And  when  the  moon  has  arisen  free, 
Your  soiling  doubt  shall  slip  from  me, 
And  eased  of  unrest  your  heart  shall  be, 
And  sated. 

"Wraiths  and  Realities,"  Mr.  Rice's  most  recent 
work,  shows  in  its  contents  some  war  reflections  none 
of  which  surpass  the  lines  in  "Waste" : 

I  flung  a  wild  rose  into  the  sea, 

I  know  not  why. 

For  swinging  there  on  a  rathe  rose-tree, 
By  the  scented  bay  and  barberry, 
Its  petals  gave  all  their  sweet  to  me, 

As  I  passed  by. 

And  yet  I  flung  it  into  the  tide, 

And  went  my  way. 
I  climbed  the  gray  rocks,  far  and  wide, 
And  many  a  cove  of  peace  I  tried, 
With  none  of  them  all  to  be  satisfied, 

The  whole  long  day. 

For  I  had  wasted  a  beautiful  thing, 

Which  might  have  won 
Each  passing  heart  to  pause  and  sing, 
On  the  sea-path  there,  of  its  blossoming, 
And  who  wastes  beauty  shall  feel  want's  sting, 

As  I  had  done. 

There  are  also  in  this  volume  many  poems  sugges 
tive  of  various  nationalities  such  as  the  opening  stanza 
of  "Danse  MacAbre": 

I  heard  a  great  rattle  of  bones  in  the  night, 
And  saw  the  dead  rise  from  the  earth — a  sight ! 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  79 

They  carried  them  lanterns  of  will-o'-the-wisps, 
And  their  speech  cackled  and  broke  with  lisps. 

They  flung  shrouds  off  and  got  in  a  ring, 
And  knuckle  to  knuckle  I  saw  them  spring. 
Their  hair  blew  off,  and  skull  to  skull 
They  gabbled  and  danced,  interminable. 

"A  Norse  Song"  which  begins 

Along  the  coasts  of  Nevermore 
A  lone  loon  cries, 
The  gray  loon  Despair, 
With  a  heart  that  cannot  rest. 
His  wail  is  the  world's  wail 
For  youth  that  never  dies; 
And  I  have  listened  to  it 
Till  the  tears  are  in  my  eyes, 

is  in  interesting  contrast  to  "Katenka's  Lover,"  a  Rus 
sian  inspired  theme. 

Little  Katenka  took  twelve  weeds 
And  wove  them  into  a  wreath  for  her  hair; 
Buttercup,  rattray  and  marguerite, 
Parsley,   clover  and  nettle  were  there. 
"I  want  to  behold  in  dreams,"  she  said, 
"In  magic  dreams  my  destined  lover!" 
And  .  .  .  she  did;  for  a  weed  bane-bred 
Of  peace — little  Katenka! 

Deep  dreams !  so  now  the  ikoned  priests 
Have  carried  her,  at  the  funeral  hour, 
Out  to  her  princely  lover,  Death, 
In  the  ever-blossoming  earth,  his  bower. 


8o  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

And  she  shall  never  again  desire, 
But  only  lie  in  his  arms  dreaming.  .  .  . 
Little  Katenka,  in  a  bride-tire 
Of  peace — little  Katenka ! 

Mr.  Rice's  books  include  the  following:  "The  Col 
lected  Plays  and  Poems,"  "At  the  World's  Heart," 
"Porzia,"  "Far  Quests,"  "The  Immortal  Lure,"  "Many 
Gods,"  "Nirvana  Days,"  "A  Night  in  Avignon,"  "Yo- 
landa  of  Cyprus,"  "David,"  "Charles  di  Tocca," 
"Song-Surf"  (published  by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.), 
and  "Trails  Sunward,"  and  "Earth  and  New  Earth" 
(published  by  The  Century  Co.). 

Conrad  Aiken 

"Every  sensitive,  imaginative,  beauty-loving  youth 
lives  for  a  period  a  dream-life  whose  great  preoccupa 
tions  are  love  and  death,  dreamed  in  a  dim  borderland 
between  the  dusk  and  dawn  of  the  ideal  and  the  real. 
It  is  a  delightful  land,  but  one  of  unsure  footing.  Be 
fore  the  explorer  is  aware,  he  steps  from  sensuousness 
to  the  quicksand  of  sensuality,  from  a  normal  eroti 
cism  to  the  quag  of  neurosis.  Conrad  Aiken  is  the  poet 
of  this  region  and  of  the  passionate  shadows  that  popu 
late  it." 

Thus  declares  a  writer  in  the  New  York  Times 
Book  Review.  But  it  is  good  that  we  have  these  poets 
just  as  we  go  through  those  stages  of  first  love,  first 
drink  and  all  the  other  "firsts"  encountered  from  the 
adolescent  to  the  more  mature  stage. 

It  was  in  "Earth  Triumphant"  that  Mr.  Aiken  gave 
us  a  picture  of  nature  beautiful,  complete  with  all  its 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  81 

various  odors — a  splendid  votive  offering  to  the  senses 
of  sight  and  smell. 

"The  Jig  of  Forslin"  showed  the  dream  world  in 
perpetuation  of  life  and  the  soul  of  every  man,  and 
here  were  indications  of  a  growth  of  many  promises. 

While  his  more  recent  book,  "Nocturne  of  Remem 
bered  Spring"  fails  to  establish  this  promise,  there  is 
rare  youth  in  these  lines : 

Mist  goes  up  from  the  river  to  dim  the  stars,  .  .  . 
And  flare  of  horns,  and  clang  of  cymbals,  and  drums ; 
And  strew  the  glimmering  floor  with  petals  of  roses 
And  remember,  while  rich  music  yawns  and  closes, 
With  a  luxury  of  pain,  how  silence  comes.  .  .  . 

It  has  been  said  that  Mr.  Aiken  is  a  psychological 
poet,  and  this  psychological  quality  is  particularly 
demonstrated  in  these  lines : 

In  the  evening,  as  the  lamps  are  lighted, 

Sitting  alone  in  his  strange  world, 

He  meditates ;  and  through  his  musing  hears 

The  tired  footfalls  of  the  dying  day 

Monotonously  ebb  and  ebb  away 

Into  the  smouldering  west; 

And  hears  the  dark  world  slowly  come  to  rest. 

Now,  as  the  real  world  dwindles  and  grows  dim, 

His  dreams  come  back  to  him: 

Now,  as  one  who  stands 

In  the  aquarium's  gloom,  by  creeping  sands, 
Watching  the  glide  of  fish  beneath  pale  bubbles, 
The  bubbles  briefly  streaming, 
Cold  and  white  and  green,  poured  in  silver, 
He  does  not  know  if  this  is  wake  or  dreaming; 


82  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

But   thinks    to   learn,    reach    out   his   hands,    and 

swim.  .  .  . 

The  music  weaves  about  him,  gold  and  silver ; 
The  music  chatters,  the  music  sings, 
The  music  sinks  and  dies. 

Who  dies,  who  lives  ?    What  leaves  remain  forever  ? 
Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  immortal  springs  ? 
Who  laughs,  who  kills,  who  cries  ? 

We  hold  them  all,  they  walk  our  dreams  forever, 

Nothing  perishes  in  that  haunted  air, 

Nothing  but  is  immortal  there. 

And  we  ourselves,  dying  with  all  our  worlds, 

Will  only  pass  the  ghostly  portal 

Into  another's  dream;  and  so  live  on 

Through  dream  to  dream,  immortal. 

Conrad  Aiken  was  born  in  Savannah,  Ga.,  August 
5,  1889.  He  graduated  from  Harvard  in  1912,  and 
married  Jessie  McDonald  of  Montreal,  Canada,  that 
same  year.  He  lives  in  Boston. 

Aside  from  Mr.  Aiken's  contributions  to  The  Dial  in 
1917,  he  is  the  author  of  "Earth  Triumphant  and 
Other  Tales,"  "Turns  and  Movies,"  "Nocturne  of  Re 
membered  Spring,"  and  "Charnel  Rose." 


CHAPTER  IX 

ROBERT  SERVICE,   JOHN   MCCRAE,   EDGAR   MIDDLETON 

Robert  Service 

While  the  writer  has  never  seen  the  royalty  state 
ments  of  Robert  W.  Service,  it  is  probable  that  they 
would  present  a  showing  of  figures  that  would  be  proof 
positive  of  just  how  financially  successful  poetry  writ 
ing  can  be  when  the  popular  note  is  struck. 

Service  has  been  called  "The  American  Kipling" — 
perhaps  by  the  virtue  that  he  is  quoted  almost  as  often 
as  his  older  English  contemporary  across  the  sea. 

While  "The  Songs  of  a  Sourdough"  and  "The  Bal 
lads  of  a  Cheechako"  established  his  name  and  fame 
as  a  popular  poet,  he  has  done  the  best  of  his  writings 
so  far  in  "The  Rhymes  of  a  Red  Cross  Man." 

An  adventurer  in  the  far  North,  lured  by  the  prom 
ises  of  a  gold  fortune  in  the  Yukon,  like  Balboa  of 
old,  he  found  a  greater  thing  than  that  for  which  he 
sought.  For  here  came  the  inspiration  which  resulted 
in  such  famous  lines  as  these  first  two  stanzas  from 
"The  Spell  of  the  Yukon" : 

I  wanted  the  gold,  and  I  sought  it ; 

I  scrabbled  and  mucked  like  a  slave. 
Was  it  famine  or  scurvy — I  fought  it ; 

I  hurled  my  youth  into  a  grave. 

83    - 


84  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

I  wanted  the  gold,  and  I  got  it — 
Came  out  with  a  fortune  last  fall, — 

Yet  somehow  life's  not  what  I  thought  it, 
And  somehow  the  gold  isn't  all. 

No!    There's  the  land.     (Have  you  seen  it?) 

It's  the  cussedest  land  that  I  know, 
From  the  big,  dizzy  mountains  that  screen  it 

To  the  deep,  deathlike  valley  below. 
Some  say  God  was  tired  when  He  made  it; 

Some  say  it's  a  fine  land  to  shun ; 
Maybe;  but  there's  some  as  would  trade  it 

For  no  land  on  earth — and  I'm  one. 

In  his  "Ballads  of  a  Cheechako"  he  again  is  spokes 
man  for  the  prosecutor  and  presents  his  song  of  the 
gold  hunt  in  those  vigorous  lines  of  "The  Trail  of 
'98,"  which  begin: 

Gold !    We  leapt  from  our  benches.     Gold !    We  sprang 

from  our  stools. 
Gold!     We  wheeled  in  the  furrow,  fired  with  the  faith 

of  fools. 

Fearless,  un found,  unfitted,  far  from  the  night  and  cold, 
Heard  we  the  clarion  summons,  followed  the  master-lure 

—Gold! 

Men  from  the  sands  of  the  Sunland ;  men  from  the  woods 

of  the  West ; 
Men  from  the  farms  and  the  cities,  into  the  Northland 

we  pressed. 
Graybeards  and  striplings  and  women,  good  men  and 

bad  men  and  bold, 
Leaving  our  homes  and  our  loved  ones,  crying  exultantly 

—"Gold!" 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  85 

The  story  qualities  of  these  poems  is  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that  beginning  with  the  well-known  "Shoot 
ing  of  Dan  McGrew"  they  have  been  adapted  one  by 
one  into  successful  plays  for  the  motion  picture  screen. 

Within  Service  there  was  a  desire  that  could  not  be 
quelled  to  express  the  various  scenes  and  adventures 
through  which  he  was  living  and  so  he  gave  us  his 
poems  of  real  men,  "red  blood  men"  they  have  been 
called,  men  who  talk  in  a  vigorous  tongue,  men  whose 
primal  instincts  and  passions  spur  them  to  labour,  to 
dream,  to  achieve,  to  bow  down  before  defeat — in  fact, 
human  men.  These  are  the  men  of  "The  Spell  of  the 
Yukon." 

Service,  an  ardent  motor  enthusiast,  enlisted  as  an 
ambulance  driver  early  in  the  war.  Stories  of  the 
bravery  of  his  exploits  cannot  be  given  here,  but  he 
has  faced  the  shell-stormed  road  with  his  loads  of 
wounded,  he  has  lived  the  things  he  writes,  and  just 
as  he  has  analyzed  the  Yukon  man,  so  has  he  inter 
preted  the  struggles  of  the  soldier  of  to-day. 

The  war  stories  that  Robert  Service  tells  in  "Rhymes 
of  a  Red  Cross  Man"  are  among  the  most  picturesque 
things  that  poetry  has  produced  as  a  result  of  the 
World  War.  The  same  vivid  stroke  that  splashed  the 
pages  of  his  Yukon  poems  with  life  and  adventure  is 
again  evidenced  with  even  a  stronger  amount  of  feel 
ing  than  in  his  earlier  work. 

Among  these  poems  is  the  dramatic  tale  of  "Jean 
Desprez."  Here  Mr.  Service  pictures  a  peasant  boy 
of  France,  who  gives  a  crucified  Zouave  a  cup  of  cold 
water  during  a  German  invasion  in  his  home  village. 
The  effect  of  this  upon  the  Hun  invaders  produces 


86  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

A  roar  of  rage !    They  seize  the  boy ;  they  tear  him  fast 

away. 

The  Prussian  Major  swings  around ;  no  longer  is  he  gay. 
His  teeth  are  wolfishly  agleam;  his  face  all  dark  with 

spite ; 

"Go,  shoot  the  brat,"  he  snarls,  "that  dare  defy  our  Prus 
sian  might. 
Yet  stay!     I  have  another  thought.     I'll  kindly  be,  and 

spare ; 
Quick !  give  the  lad  a  rifle  charged,  and  set  him  squarely 

there, 
And  bid  him  shoot,  and  shoot  to  kill.    Haste !  Make  him 

understand 
The  dying  dog  he  fain  would  save  shall  perish  by  his 

hand." 

But  the  French  peasant  lad,  in  spite  of  the  pleas 
of  the  Zouave  to  shoot  him,  turns  the  gun  upon  the 
Prussian  Major  instead,  and  shoots  him  dead. 

And  then  there  is  that  little  story  of  "Cocotte,"  the 
French  girl,  whose  lover  has  been  called  in  the  war, 
and  who  has  left  her  "the  rose-wreathed  villa  at  Viro- 
flay,"  where  they  lived  together  before  the  war.  In 
Saint  Lazare,  Cocotte  sees  two  wounded  Poilus,  one, 
"a  bit  of  a  boy,  was  blind,"  and  its  effect  upon  her  is 
told  by  Service  as  follows : 

"How  he  stirred  me,  this  blind  boy,  clinging 
Just  like  a  child  to  his  crippled  chum. 
But  I  did  not  cry.     Oh  no ;  a  singing 
Came  to  my  heart  for  a  year  so  dumb, 
Then  I  knew  that  at  three-and-twenty, 
There  is  wonderful  work  to  be  done, 
Comfort  and  kindness  and  joy  in  plenty, 
Peace  and  light  and  love  to  be  won. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  87 

Oh,  thought  I,  could  mine  eyes  be  given 

To  one  who  will  live  in  the  dark  alway! 

To  love  and  to  serve — 'twould  make  life  Heaven 

Here  in  my  villa  at  Viroflay. 

So  I  left  my  Poilus :  and  now  you  wonder 

Why  today  I  am  so  elate.  .  .  . 

Look!     In  the  glory  of  sunshine  yonder 

They're  bringing  my  blind  boy  in  at  the  gate." 

In  the  concluding  stanza  of  "Young  Fellow  My 
Lad,"  Service  presents  in  his  own  best  style  the  spirit 
ual  side  of  those  words  "carry  on" — 

"So  you'll  live,  you'll  live,  Young  Fellow  My  Lad, 

In  the  gleam  of  the  evening  star, 

In  the  wood-note  wild  and  the  laugh  of  the  child, 

In  all  sweet  things  that  are. 

And  you'll  never  die,  my  wonderful  boy, 

While  life  is  noble  and  true; 

For  all  our  beauty  and  hope  and  joy 

We  will  owe  to  our  lads  like  you." 

Robert  Service  was  born  in  Preston,  England,  on 
January  16,  1874,  the  son  of  Robert  Service,  man 
ager  of  Preston  Bank,  and  Emily  Parker  of  Preston. 
He  was  educated  at  Hillhead  Public  School,  Glasgow, 
and  afterwards  served  an  apprenticeship  with  the  Com 
mercial  Bank  of  Scotland  in  the  same  city. 

Service  emigrated  to  Canada  and  settled  on  Van 
couver  Island  where  he  engaged  in  farming  but  gave 
this  up  for  his  explorer's  life,  traveling  up  and  down 
the  Pacific  Coast,  experiencing  many  hardships. 

Tiring  of  this  he  finally  joined  the  staff  of  the 
Canadian  Bank  of  Commerce,  in  Victoria,  B.  C.,  in 


88  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

1905  and  was  transferred  to  White  House,  Yukon 
Territory,  and  then  to  Dawson. 

Eight  years  in  the  Yukon  have  resulted  in  his  meta 
morphosis  from  a  bank  employee  to  one  of  our  most 
important  poets  of  to-day. 

His  books  include  "Songs  of  a  Sourdough";  "Bal 
lads  of  a  Cheechako";  "Trail  of  '98";  "Rhymes  of  a 
Rolling  Stone" ;  "The  Pretender" ;  and  "Rhymes  of  a 
Red  Cross  Man." 

John  McCrae 

If  one  should  be  asked,  "What  Canadian  poets  are 
contributing  to  contemporary  American  poetry?"  the 
answer  would  be  "Robert  Service"  and  there  the  aver 
age  reader  in  the  United  States  would  stop. 

The  Canadian  regiments  have  played  one  of  the 
most  courageous,  spectacular  and  effective  parts  in  the 
World  War  and  it  is  natural  that  from  their  ranks 
should  come  poets.  And  John  McCrae  is  entitled  to  a 
place  among  our  contemporary  American  poets  al 
though  the  man  himself  has  paid  "the  last  full  measure 
of  devotion." 

Spontaneous  and  extensive  recognition  greeted  the 
inspired  lines,  "In  Flanders'  Fields"  for  here  was  a 
depth  of  feeling  and  experience  of  tragedy  that  placed 
it  in  the  fore  of  war  poems. 

While  the  following  from  "In  Flanders'  Fields"  is 
perhaps  the  best  example  of  this  lieutenant-colonel's 
work,  he  has  left  behind  a  number  of  other  poems 
equally  as  beautiful  and  which  have  just  been  published 
by  Putnams.  "In  Flanders'  Fields"  is  now  known  to 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  89 

half  the  English  speaking  world,  and  has  been  trans 
lated  into  a  score  of  languages. 

IN  FLANDERS'  FIELDS 

In  Flanders'  fields,  the  poppies  blow 
Between  the  crosses,  row  on  row, 
That  mark  our  place ;  and  in  the  sky 
The  larks,  still  bravely  singing,  fly, 
Scarce  heard  amid  the  guns  below. 

We  are  the  dead.     Short  days  ago 
We  lived,  felt  dawn,  saw  sunset  glow, 
Loved  and  were  loved ;  and  now  we  lie 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

Take  up  our  quarrel  with  the  foe! 
To  you,  from  failing  hands,  we  throw 
The  torch.     Be  yours  to  lift  it  high ! 
If  ye  break  faith  with  us  who  die 
We  shall  not  sleep,  though  poppies  blow 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

John  McCrae  was  born  in  Guelph,  Ontario,  the  son 
of  Colonel  and  Mrs.  David  McCrae.  In  civilian  life 
he  held  the  position  of  lecturer  in  pathology  and  medi 
cine  at  the  Medical  School,  McGill  University.  Early 
in  1914,  McCrae  who  had  just  arrived  in  London 
cabled  to  Canada,  offering  his  services.  He  was  ap 
pointed  surgeon  to  the  First  Brigade  of  Canadian  Ar 
tillery.  He  was  with  the  guns  along  the  Ypres  sector 
for  a  continuous  period  of  fourteen  months  and  here 
found  inspiration  for  his  poems.  His  health  was  un 
dermined  by  the  strain  of  constant  duty  and  he  died 


90  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

in  France  from  pneumonia,  complicated  by  meningitis, 
on  January  28,  1918. 

Jesse  Edgar  Middleton 

Jesse  Edgar  Middleton,  with  his  "Sea  Dogs  and 
Men  at  Arms,"  properly  designated  a  Canadian  book 
of  songs,  has  given  us  a  breezy  volume  of  the  sea  and 
sailor  men  in  war  times. 

His  poems  fairly  bristle  with  terms  of  the  sea, 
when  he  describes  a  leviathan  of  the  sea  in  "Missing 
at  Lloyd's,"  as  follows: 

Arch  and  gusset  and  sturdy  truss 

Riveted  strong  and  true. 
Plates  as  firm  as  the  hoary  rocks 

Dipping  beneath  the  blue. 
Spinning  turbine  and  shining  shaft, 

Piston  and  dynamo! 
With  a  laugh  at  the  snoring  blast 

Into  the  seas  we  go. 

Phosphor's  light  on  the  raving  sea 

Giving  us  ghostly  cheer! 
Reeling,  staggering,  nor'-nor'-west 

Into  the  gale  we  steer. 
Arch  and  rivet  and  truss  give  way, 

Turbine  and  piston  cease. 
Slanting  decks  and  a  rocket  light ! 

Death — and  the  hills  of  peace. 

Mr.  Middleton  can  write  as  well  in  other  forms,  to 
witness,  "The  Finale,"  in  a  section  in  "Sea  Dogs  and 
Men  at  Arms,"  which  he  chooses  to  call  "Moods." 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  91 

THE  FINALE 

Now  with  my  comrades, 

Rank  on  serried  rank, 

I  march,  with  soldier  laugh 

And  rough-hewn  jest, 

Past  the  fair  daisy  bank, 

Then  take  my  evening  rest 

In  bosky  shades, 

While  through  the  inky  glades 

The  nightingale 

Hymns  his  alluring  note. 

Above  the  bivouac 

The  moon  sails  high, 

The  cruel  five-franc  moon, 

Glaring  on  such  as  I, 

Doomed,  doomed  to  die, 

On  the  red  sod  to  lie, 

With  fixed  blue-purple  stare 

Away  from  love, 

Away  from  care. 

Mr.  Middleton's  contrasting  study  of  peace  and  war 
is  forcibly  pictured  in  his  poem  of  that  name : 

PEACE  AND  WAR 

A  pleasant  river,  clear  and  blue, 

Went  singing  to  the  sea. 
The  sunbeam  joined  them  hand  in  hand 

To  dance  the  melody. 
The  courtly  rushes  bowed  their  heads 

As  nobles  to  the  Queen, 
And  saw,  reflected  in  the  wave, 

Their  coats  of  Lincoln  green. 


92  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

God  made  such  horrors?     Count  that  word  a  lie. 
God  made  the  pleasant  river,  clear  and  blue, 
Peace  is  His  handiwork,  and  love,  and  joy, 
While  man  makes  sewers — and  artillery, 
Grim  bayonets,  and  howitzers  and  shell, 
The  battle-squadron  surging  through  the  tides, 
Ten  thousand  hecatombs  of  reeking  red 
And  all  the  vile  magnificence  of  War. 

Jesse  E.  Middleton  is  the  only  son  of  the  Rev.  E, 
Middleton  of  the  Canadian  Methodist  Church,  and 
was  born  in  Wellington  County,  Ontario,  Canada,  on 
November  3,  1872.  His  father  is  of  English  birth, 
but  his  mother,  Margaret  Agar,  is  a  native  Canadian. 
His  home  education,  which  was  very  thorough,  was 
supplemented  by  High  School  training. 

After  four  years  as  a  school  teacher,  Mr.  Middleton 
joined  the  publishing  firm  of  Burrows  Brothers  of 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  and  spent  several  years  there  working 
on  the  Jesuit  Relations. 

He  entered  journalism  in  1899  as  political  reporter 
of  The  Montreal  Herald  in  Quebec  City,  the  provincial 
capital.  Later  he  was  associated  with  The  Quebec 
Chronicle. 

In  1903,  Mr.  Middleton  came  to  Toronto  as  music- 
critic  of  The  Mail  and  Empire  and  after  a  year  of  serv 
ice  took  up  similar  work  on  The  Toronto  Daily  News. 
He  retired  from  critical  work  to  write  a  daily  column 
of  paragraphs  and  light  verse  under  the  heading  "On 
the  Side."  This  "feature"  has  awakened  a  good  deal 
of  favourable  comment.  Mr.  Middleton  is  well-known 
and  highly  regarded  in  Canada.  Some  of  his  work  is 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  93 

not  unknown  to  the  readers  of  the  American  maga 
zines. 

He  was  married  in  1899  to  Miss  Bessie  Alberta 
Jackson  of  London,  Ontario. 


CHAPTER  X 

JOYCE    KILMER,     ALAN     SEEGER,     CHARLES    DIVINE, 
JOHN  MCCLURE 

Joyce  Kilmer 

On  a  Sunday  morning  in  August,  1918,  the  great 
daily  papers  throughout  our  country  carried  this  head 
line: 

JOYCE  KILMER,  POET, 
IS  KILLED  IN  ACTION. 

It  was  a  news  item  of  universal  interest,  for  Joyce 
Kilmer  wrote  "Trees,"  and  this  small  lyric  of  exquisite 
beauty  and  simplicity  is  doubtless  one  of  the  best- 
known  among  its  contemporaries. 

TREES 
(For  Mrs.  Henry  Mills  Alden) 

I  think  that  I  shall  never  see 
A  poem  lovely  as  a  tree. 

A  tree  whose  hungry  mouth  is  prest 
Against  the  earth's  sweet  flowing  breast ; 

A  tree  that  looks  at  God  all  day, 
And  lifts  her  leafy  arms  to  pray ; 

A  tree  that  may  in  Summer  wear 
A  nest  of  robins  in  her  hair; 
94 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  95 

Upon  whore  bosom  snow  has  lain ; 
Who  intimately  lives  with  rain. 

Poems  are  made  by  fools  like  me, 
But  only  God  can  make  a  tree. 

The  following  letter  from  Walter  Irving  Clarke  of 
Auburndale,  Mass.,  appeared  in  The  New  York  Times 
soon  after  the  poet's  death : 

"I  have  been  looking  at  the  tree  tops  silhouetted 
against  the  sun's  sky,  and  again  against  the  moonlight, 
and  reverently  recalling  Joyce  Kilmer's  poem,  'Trees' : 

I  think  that  I  shall  never  see 
A  poem  lovely  as  a  tree. 

Poems  are  made  by  fools  like  me, 
But  only  God  can  make  a  tree. 

"News  has  just  come  of  Joyce  Kilmer's  sacrifice  of 
his  life  on  the  fields  of  France.  From  his  boyhood  on 
the  banks  of  the  old  Raritan,  through  the  fruitful  years 
of  his  poetic  young  manhood  to  his  heroism  in  the  fight 
for  freedom,  Joyce  Kilmer  grew  strong  and  beautiful 
as  a  tree  in  the  open  under  the  sky.  His  tribute  to  the 
trees  is  immortal ;  his  tribute  to  humanity  is  celestial : 

I  think  that  I  shall  never  scan 
A  tree  as  lovely  as  a  man. 

A  tree  depicts  divinest  plan, 
But  God  himself  lives  in  a  man." 

Christopher  Morley,  writing  in  The  Philadelphia 
Evening  Ledger  says :  "Joyce  Kilmer  died  as  he  lived 


96  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

— 'in  action/  He  found  life  intensely  amusing,  un 
speakably  interesting;  his  energy  was  unlimited,  his 
courage  stout.  He  attacked  life  at  all  points,  rapidly 
gathered  its  complexities  about  him,  and  the  more 
intricate  it  became  the  more  zestful  he  found  it.  Noth 
ing  bewildered  him,  nothing  terrified.  By  the  time  he 
was  thirty  he  had  attained  an  almost  unique  position  in 
literary  circles.  He  lectured  on  poetry,  he  interviewed 
famous  men  of  letters,  he  was  poet,  editor,  essayist, 
critic,  anthologist.  He  was  endlessly  active,  full  of 
delightful  mirth  and  a  thousand  schemes  for  outwit 
ting  the  devil  of  necessity  that  hunts  all  brainworkers." 

Kilmer,  in  a  letter  to  the  author  of  this  book  written 
shortly  before  his  death,  declared  that  his  earlier  ef 
forts  in  poetry  were  utterly  worthless  save  one  poem 
called  "Pennies"  which  was  eventually  published  in 
"Trees  and  Other  Poems." 

"I  want  all  of  my  poems  written  before  that  forgot 
ten,"  wrote  Kilmer.  "They  were  only  the  exercises  of 
an  amateur,  imitations,  useful  only  as  technical  train 
ing.  If  what  I  nowadays  write  is  considered  poetry, 
then  I  became  a  poet  in  November,  1913. 

"All  that  poetry  can  be  expected  to  do  is  to  give 
pleasure  of  a  noble  sort  to  its  readers,  leading  them 
to  the  contemplation  of  that  Beauty  which  neither 
words  nor  sculptures  nor  pigments  can  do  more  than 
faintly  to  reflect,  and  to  express  the  mental  and  spirit 
ual  tendencies  of  the  people  of  the  lands  and  times  in 
which  it  is  written.  I  have  very  little  chance  to  read 
contemporary  poetry  out  here,  but  I  hope  it  is  reflecting 
the  virtues  which  are  blossoming  on  the  blood-soaked 
soil  of  this  land — courage  and  self-abnegation,  and 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  97 

love,  and  faith — this  last  not  faith  in  some  abstract 
goodness,  but  faith  in  God  and  His  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  in  the  Church  which  God  Himself  founded 
and  still  rules.  France  has  turned  to  her  ancient  faith 
with  more  passionate  devotion  than  she  has  shown  for 
centuries.  I  believe  that  America  is  learning  the  same 
lesson  from  the  war,  and  is  cleansing  herself  of  cyni 
cism  and  pessimism  and  materialism  and  the  lust  for 
novelty  which  has  hampered  our  national  development. 
I  hope  that  our  poets  already  see  this  tendency  and  re 
joice  in  it — if  they  do  not  they  are  unworthy  of  their 
craft. 

"I  would  venture  to  surmise  that  the  extravagances 
and  decadence  of  the  so-called  'renascence  of  poetry' 
during  the  last  five  years — a  renascence  distinguished 
by  the  celebration  of  the  queer  and  the  nasty  instead  of 
the  beautiful — have  made  the  poet  seem  as  silly  a  fig 
ure  to  the  contemporary  American  as  he  seemed  to  the 
Englishman  of  the  eighteen-nineties,  when  the  'aesthetic 
movement'  was  at  its  foolish  height." 

Various  tributes  and  appreciations  of  Joyce  Kilmer 
have  followed  his  death,  conspicuous  among  which  is 
Richardson  Wright's  intimate  study  of  him,  published 
in  The  Bellman: 

"The  better  poet  Kilmer  became,"  says  Mr.  Wright, 
"the  less  like  a  poet  he  acted.  And  this  better  poetry — 
the  poetry  of  simplicity  and  sincerity  toward  men  and 
the  things  men  come  in  contact  with — was  set  down 
in  those  thirty-one  titles  that  comprise  'Trees  and 
Other  Poems.' 

"I  believe  that  he  wrote  easily  and  spontaneously, 
labouring  more  with  his  pipe  than  his  pen.  The 


98  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Twelve-Forty-Five,'  if  I  remember  rightly,  was  writ 
ten  on  the  12.45.  Strange  that  he  should  have  said 
then — 

'Perhaps  Death  roams  the  hills  to-night 
And  we  rush  forth  to  give  him  fight.' 

and  that  was  how  he  died — on  a  patrol  rushed  forth, 
on  a  little  hill." 

Joyce  Kilmer  was  born  in  New  Brunswick,  New 
Jersey,  December  6,  1886.  He  attended  Rutledge* 
College  between  1904  and  1906,  and  secured  his  de 
gree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  Columbia  University  in 
1908.  He  married  Aline  Merry  of  Norfolk,  Virginia, 
in  1908.  Upon  receiving  his  degree,  he  became  an 
instructor  in  Latin  in  the  High  School  at  Morristown, 
New  Jersey.  But  this  appealed  to  him  only  a  short 
time,  and  in  1909  he  became  an  editorial  assistant  on 
the  Standard  Dictionary,  later  editor  of  The  Church 
man,  and  in  1913  a  member  of  the  staff  of  the  New 
York  Times  Review  of  Books.  Much  of  his  verse  has 
appeared  in  such  magazines  as  The  Bellman,  The  Bos 
ton  Transcript,  Colliers,  The  Outlook,  and  The  Cath 
olic  World. 

Just  17  days  after  Congress  declared  war  Kilmer  en 
listed  in  the  7th  Infantry  and  soon  attained  the  office 
of  sergeant.  He  was  acting  unofficially  in  the  i65th 
Infantry  of  the  old  Rainbow  Division  as  adjutant  to 
Major  Wm.  J.  Donovan  when  he  met  death  July  30 
near  Villers-sur-Fere  and  none  in  command  surpassed 
the  American  poet  soldier  in  courage  according  to  his 
comrades.  How  well  might  Kilmer's  own  lines  to  that 
poet  who  died  but  a  short  time  before  him  be  applied : 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  99 

IN  MEMORY  OF  RUPERT  BROOKE 

In  alien  earth,  across  a  troubled  sea, 

His  body  lies  that  was  so  fair  and  young. 

His  mouth  is  stopped,  with  half  his  songs  unsung; 

His  arm  is  still,  that  struck  to  make  men  free. 

But  let  no  cloud  of  lamentation  be 
Where,  on  a  warrior's  grave,  a  lyre  is  hung. 
We  keep  the  echoes  of  his  golden  tongue, 

We  keep  the  vision  of  his  chivalry. 

So  Israel's  joy,  the  loveliest  of  kings, 

Smote  now  his  harp,  and  now  the  hostile  horde. 

To-day  the  starry  roof  of  Heaven  rings 

With  psalms  a  soldier  made  to  praise  his  Lord ; 

And  David  rests  beneath  Eternal  wings, 
Song  on  his  lips,  and  in  his  hand  a  sword. 

Alan  Seeger 

While  it  has  been  the  endeavor  of  the  author  to  limit 
this  volume  solely  to  American  poets  who  are  writing 
today,  the  World  War  has  demanded  the  full  price 
from  some  of  these  soldier  poets  since  this  work  was 
begun. 

Alan  Seeger's  world  famous  poem,  "I  Have  a  Ren 
dezvous  with  Death,"  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of 
the  better  known  war  poems.  It  has  reached  the  hearts 
of  thousands,  and  will  go  down  in  the  history  of  the 
present  war  verse  with  the  best  of  his  English  con 
temporary,  Rupert  Brooke. 

Alan  Seeger  was  born  in  New  York  on  June  22, 
1888,  His  parents,  who  were  of  old  New  England 


ioo  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

stock,  moved  to  Staten  Island  when  Alan  was  but  a 
year  old.  He  was  educated  in  the  Staten  Island  Acad 
emy,  the  Horace  Mann  School,  and  Harvard  College. 
Before  the  war  was  three  weeks  old,  Seeger,  with  a 
number  of  other  Americans,  enlisted  in  the  Foreign 
Legion  of  France.  It  was  a  fight  and  for  France,  and 
for  the  France  which  he  loved. 

Seeger  had  hoped  to  have  been  in  Paris  on  Decora 
tion  Day  to  read  before  the  statue  of  Lafayette  and 
Washington,  his  "Ode  in  Memory  of  the  American 
Volunteers  Fallen  for  France,"  written  by  him  at  the 
request  of  a  committee  of  American  residents,  but  his 
leave  of  absence  did  not  arrive  in  time.  Some  critics 
have  found  this  ode  the  best  of  his  work. 

"A  nobler  ode  has  not  come  my  way,"  says  William 
Archer  in  his  introduction  to  Alan  Seeger's  published 
poems,  from  which  the  following  is  quoted : 

"Ay,  it  is  fitting  on  the  holiday, 

Commemorative  of  our  soldier  dead, 

When,  with  the  sweet  flowers  of  our  New  England  May, 

Hiding  the  lichened  stones  by  fifty  years  made  gray — 

Their  graves  in  every  town  are  garlanded, 

That  pious  tribute  should  be  given  too 

To  our  intrepid  few 

Obscurely  fallen  here  beyond  the  seas. 

"Now  heaven  be  thanked,  we  gave  a  few  brave  drops; 
Now  heaven  be  thanked,  a  few  brave  drops  were  ours. 

"There,  holding  still,  in  frozen  steadfastness, 
Their  bayonets  toward  the  beckoning  frontiers, 
They  lie — our  comrades — lie  among  their  peers, 
Gad  in  the  glory  of  fallen  warriors, 
Grim  clusters  under  thorny  trellises, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  101 

Dry,  furthest  foam  upon  disastrous  shores, 

Leaves  that  made  last  year  beautiful,  still  strewn 

Even  as  they  fell,  unchanged,  beneath  the  changing  moon ; 

And  earth  in  her  divine  indifference 

Rolls  on,  and  many  paltry  things  and  mean 

Prate  to  be  heard  and  caper  to  be  seen. 

But  they  are  silent,  calm ;  their  eloquence 

Is  that  incomparable  attitude ; 

No  human  presences  their  witness  are, 

But  summer  clouds  and  sunset  crimson-hued, 

And  showers  and  night  winds  and  the  northern  star. 

Nay,  even  our  salutations  seem  profane, 

Opposed  to  their  Elysian  quietude; 

Our  salutations  calling  from  afar, 

From  our  ignobler  plane 

And  undistinction  of  our  lesser  parts ; 

Hail,  brothers,  and  farewell;  you  are  twice  blest,  brave 

hearts ; 

Double  your  glory  is  who  perished  thus, 
For  you  have  died  for  France  and  vindicated  us." 

But  in  spite  of  the  perfection  in  these  lines,  it  will 
be  these  more  popular  lines  that  shall  link  his  name 
with  the  poetry  of  the  World  War  and  the  period  in 
which  he  wrote : 

I  HAVE  A  RENDEZVOUS  WITH  DEATH 

I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 

At  some  disputed  barricade, 

When  Spring  comes  back  with  rustling  shade 

And  apple-blossoms  fill  the  air — 

I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 

When  Spring  brings  back  blue  days  and  fair. 


102  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

It  may  be  he  shall  take  my  hand 
And  lead  me  into  his  dark  land 
And  close  my  eyes  and  quench  my  breath- 
It  may  be  I  shall  pass  him  still. 
I  have  a  rendezvous  wfth  Death 
On  some  scarred  slope  of  battered  hill, 
When  Spring  comes  round  again  this  year 
And  the  first  meadow-flowers  appear. 

God  knows  'twere  better  to  be  deep 
Pillowed  in  silk  and  scented  down, 
Where  Love  throbs  out  in  blissful  sleep, 
Pulse  nigh  to  pulse,  and  breath  to  breath, 
Where  hushed  awakenings  are  dear.  .  .  . 
But  I've  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
At  midnight  in  some  flaming  town, 
When  Spring  trips  north  again  this  year, 
And  I  to  my  pledged  word  am  true, 
I  shall  not  fail  that  rendezvous. 

Of  his  death,  William  Archer  writes : 

"On  July  i,  the  great  advance  began.  At  six  in 
the  evening  of  July  4,  the  Legion  was  ordered  to 
clear  the  enemy  out  of  the  village  of  Belloy-en-San- 
terre.  Alan  Seeger  advanced  in  the  first  rush,  and  his 
squad  was  enfiladed  by  the  fire  of  six  German  machine 
guns,  concealed  in  a  hollow  way.  Most  of  them  went 
down,  and  Alan  among  them,  wounded  in  several 
places.  But  the  following  waves  of  attack  were  more 
fortunate.  As  his  comrades  came  up  to  him,  Alan 
cheered  them  on;  and  as  they  left  him  behind,  they 
heard  him  singing  a  marching  song  in  English : 

Accents  of  ours  were  in  the  Fierce  melee. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  103 

They  took  the  village,  they  drove  the  invaders  out; 
but  for  some  reason  unknown — perhaps  a  very  good 
one — the  battlefield  was  left  unvisited  that  night.  Next 
morning,  Alan  Seeger  lay  dead." 

There  is  little  to  add.  He  wrote  his  own  best  epi 
taph  in  the  "Ode" : 

And  on  those  furthest  rims  of  hallowed  ground 
Where  the  forlorn,  the  gallant  charge  expires, 
When  the  slain  bugler  has  long  ceased  to  sound, 
And  on  the  tangled  wires 
The  last  wild  rally  staggers,  crumbles,  stops, 
Withered  beneath  the  shrapnel's  iron  showers : — 
Now  heaven  be  thanked,  we  gave  a  few  brave  drops, 
Now  heaven  be  thanked,  a  few  brave  drops  were  ours. 

His  death  was  briefly  noticed  in  one  or  two  French 
papers.  The  Matin  published  a  translation  of  part  of 
the  poem,  "Champagne,  1914-15"  and  remarked  that 
"Cyrano  de  Bergerac  would  have  signed  it."  But 
France  had  no  time,  even  if  she  had  the  knowledge, 
to  realize  the  greatness  of  the  sacrifice  that  had  been 
made  for  her.  That  will  come  later.  One  day  France 
will  know  that  this  unassuming  soldier  of  the  Legion, 

Who,  not  unmindful  of  the  antique  debt, 
Come  back  the  generous  path  of  Lafayette, 

was  one  whom  even  she  may  be  proud  to  have  reckoned 
among  her  defenders. 

Charles  Divine 

It  was  the  War  that  brought  to  the  full  fruit  the 
poems  of  Rupert  Brooke,  Alan  Seeger  and  John  Me- 


104  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Crae.  It  is  the  war  that  has  developed  Private  Charles 
Divine,  27th  Division,  U.S.A.,  into  one  of  our  most 
important  poets. 

Before  the  war,  Divine  was  a  newspaper  reporter 
on  The  New  York  Sun  and  in  idle  moments  he  wrote 
verses  that  appeared  in  Life,  Smart  Set,  and  various 
other  magazines.  There  was  a  certain  charm  in  these 
which  augured  well  for  the  reporter's  future  as  a  poet, 
but  it  was  after  his  enlistment  in  the  army  that  as  a 
soldier  poet  he  showed  himself  able  to  portray  the  real 
spirit  of  the  American  citizen  soldier. 

Under  the  title  of  "City  Ways  and  Company  Streets" 
the  best  of  his  soldier  poems  and  poems  of  civil  life 
have  been  brought  out  by  Moffat,  Yard  &  Company. 
Divine  makes  no  attempt  to  gain  exquisite  word  ef 
fects.  He  writes  simply,  without  pretense,  of  camp 
life,  of  its  reactions  upon  the  soldier,  and  of  his  dreams 
of  the  past  and  the  hope  of  the  future. 

"At  the  Lavender  Lantern"  is  as  honest  and  charm 
ing  a  bit  of  verse  as  ever  came  from  a  poet  turned 
soldier : 

I  wonder  who  is  haunting  the  little  snug  cafe, 

That  place,  half  restaurant  and  home,  since  we  have  gone 

away  ; 
The  candled  dimness,  smoke  and  talk,  and  tables  brown 

and  bare — 
But  no  one  thinks  of  tablecloths  when  love  and  laughter's 

there. 

I  wonder  if  it's  crowded  still,  three  steps  below  the  street, 
Half  hidden  from  the  passing  town,  where  even  poets  eat ; 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  105 

I  wonder  if  the  girls  still  laugh,  the  girls  whose  art  was 

play, 
I  wonder  who  the  fellows  are  that  try  to  make  them  gay. 

Some  said  it  was  Bohemia,  this  little  haunt  we  knew, 
Where  hearts  were  high  and  fortunes  low,  and  onions  in 

the  stew, 

I  wonder  if  it's  still  the  same,  the  after  dinner  ease — 
Bohemia  is  in  the  heart,  and  hearts  are  overseas. 

Oh,  great  were  all  the  problems  that  we  settled  there, 

with  wine, 

And  fates  of  many  nations  were  disposed  of,  after  nine, 
But  France  has  braved  a  fate  that  brought  us  swarming 

to  her  shore — 
I  wonder  who  is  sitting  at  the  table  near  the  door. 

I  wonder  who  is  haunting  the  little  snug  cafe, 

That  place,  half  restaurant  and  home,  since  we  have  gone 

away; 

I  wonder  if  they  miss  me,  I  don't  suppose  they  do, 
As  long  as  there  are  art  and  girls,  and  onions  in  the  stew. 

Mr.  Grant  M.  Overton  of  The  New  York  Sun  finds 
in  Divine's  verse  "the  absence  of  hackneyed  ideas  and 
worn  old  phrases  which  are  the  sole  stock  of  most  camp 
verse"  and  declares  that  "he  writes  not  for  the  thou 
sands  but  for  the  tens  of  thousands." 

Divine  is  a  real  poet  for  he  never  tries  to  write  of 
things  which  he  has  not  seen  nor  felt. 

"The  Moonlight  Scrubbers"  demonstrates  this  apt 
ness. 

Far  down  the  vistaed,  tent-lined  street, 
From  Blue  Ridge  Mountains  pours  the  sweet 


io6  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Night-kissed  bouquet  of  oak  and  pine 

That  stings  the  head  like  potent  wine. 

Here  soldiers  sit  bent  over  tubs 

And  wash  their  clothes  with  rhythmic  rubs. 

Through  leaves,  white-tipped,  each  open  space 

Floods  moonlight,  patterned  songs,  and  lace; 

A  silver  hush  on  moon-sprayed  ground 

Breathes  music  sweeter  than  a  sound. 

Where  beauty  is,  are  loves,  desires, 

Night's  vague  and  vibrant  softness  fires; 

Adventures  brighten  in  the  South 

Where  romance  calls  from  full-lipped  mouth — 

And  see !  the  lifted  arms  hang  still, 

A  moment's  doubt  that  guns  can  kill. 

Then  scrubbing  hands  forget  the  night: 

"Who's  got  the  soap?     The  grease  sticks  tight!" 

Charles  Divine  was  born  January  20,  1889,  at 
Binghamton,  New  York.  In  a  letter  written  just  be 
fore  he  sailed  for  France  he  wrote,  "I  don't  even  know 
if  I  was  born  a  poet.  There  is  no  record  that  my 
father  announced  to  the  employees  of  his  insurance  of 
fice  the  next  day :  'Boys,  have  a  cigar !  We've  got  a 
little  poet  down  at  our  house.' 

"I  learned  later  that  I  was  born  in  a  house,  and  that 
the  house  stood  close  to  the  shore  of  the  shady  Chenan- 
go  River.  But  neither  of  my  parents  put  as  much 
emphasis  on  these  facts  as  they  did  on  the  portentous 
circumstance  that  their  son  was  born  on  a  'Sunday 
evening,  when  the  church  bells  rang.'  The  quotation 
became  a  familiar  one.  All  through  my  early  years  the 
distinctive  augury  rang  in  my  ears  more  than  the 
church  bells  ever  did.  The  hand  of  fate  had  been 
clearly  seen  pulling  the  bell  rope.  But  nothing  ever 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  107 

came  of  this  deeply  religious  significance  except  that 
two  of  my  uncles  became  ministers. 

"I  had  two  grandfathers.  One  was  a  soldier  in  the 
Civil  War,  a  farmer  and  a  school-teacher.  The  other 
was  a  canal  boat  skipper. 

"Of  the  events  of  my  youth,  I  recall  going  to  public 
school,  a  fist-fight  with  the  bully,  and  getting  licked! 
Selling  newspapers.  Buying  a  purple  necktie.  Spill 
ing  sarsaparilla  on  it.  Getting  the  nickname  'Chick/ 
which  still  survives.  Writing  the  school  notes  for  a 
local  newspaper  at  a  penny  an  inch.  Making  Col. 
Roosevelt  my  hero.  Graduating  as  class  orator  (cause 
and  effect).  Summers  spent  reporting  on  the  Bing- 
hamton  Herald  and  Press,  or  'haying  it'  on  my  grand 
father's  farm. 

"In  the  fall  of  1907  I  entered  Cornell  University, 
where  for  three  months  I  went  to  bed  at  night  with  a 
breaking  heart  because  the  fraternity  I  liked  best  hadn't 
asked  me  to  join.  At  last  the  'bid'  came  and  great 
exultation !  I  had  entered  the  law  college,  but  in  Feb 
ruary,  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  term,  I  realized 
that  I  would  make  but  a  poor  sort  of  lawyer,  and  so 
switched  to  the  College  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  Sub 
sequent  events  followed  in  this  manner :  Three  years 
in  the  Arts  College.  Writing  for  the  Cornell  Daily 
Sun,  The  Widow,  and  The  Cornellian,  thus  helping 
my  father  work  my  way  through  college.  Learning 
to  roll  the  makings  and  sing  'close  harmony.'  Attend 
ing  more  clubs  than  studies.  An  absence  of  a  year 
from  college,  spent  as  the  telegraph  editor  of  the 
Binghamton  Republican  and  on  a  cattleboat  trip  to 
Europe.  The  motley  crew  of  cattlemen.  One  looked 


io8  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

like  a  murderer.  The  foul,  hot  bunks  in  the  fo'c's'le. 
Sleeping  at  night  on  bales  of  hay  under  an  open  hatch 
way  and  the  stars.  The  continent.  Three  weeks  in 
Paris.  Broke  in  Liverpool.  Fell  in  again  with  the 
'murderer/  who  bought  me  my  supper  and  passage 
home. 

"Return  to  college.  Making  up  a  year  and  a  half's 
work  in  one.  Being  graduated  in  June,  1912.  Going 
to  New  York  City  in  July.  Joining  the  staff  of  The 
Sun  (elegant  for  'I  gotta  job  as  reporter').  Cov 
ering  banquets,  bread  lines,  murders,  gunmen,  million 
aires,  Roosevelt,  Wilson,  East  Side,  Fifth  Avenue, 
Chinatown,  Bowery,  the  unemployed,  society's  di 
vorces,  subway  accidents,  suffrage  speeches,  suicides, 
and  more  Roosevelt — when  The  Sun  made  me  its  staff 
correspondent  for  a  year  with  this  hero  of  my  youth, 
who  improved  his  right  to  that  pedestal  on  closer  ac 
quaintance. 

"Further  events :  living  in  Washington  Square  and 
Greenwich  Village.  Growing  to  love  the  following :  a 
ride  on  a  Fifth  Avenue  'bus,  the  first  cigarette  after 
breakfast,  the  stories  of  Booth  Tarkington,  Joseph 
Conrad,  and  Eugene  Manlove  Rhodes,  the  poems  of 
anybody,  white  sails  on  a  blue  horizon,  open  fires  in 
winter,  strawberry  shortcakes  in  summer,  winding 
city  streets,  the  walk  home  from  the  office  at  2  a.m., 
the  wind  from  the  sea,  the  melancholy  tooting  of  the 
river-boats  at  night.  Growing  to  feel  an  intense 
hatred  for  the  following:  toast  without  butter,  girls 
who  puff  cigarettes  like  a  steam  launch  going  phut- 
phut-phut,  Russian  novels  in  which  everybody  commits 
suicide  except  the  author,  pessimistic  people,  optimistic 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  109 

people  who  talk  about  their  optimism,  going  to  bed  at 
night,  getting  up  in  the  morning,  coffee  without  cream, 
soiled  napkins,  fat  greasy  Germans,  fat  greasy  people, 
rejection  slips,  and  cold  weather. 

"Resigning  from  The  Sun  in  October,  1916,  to  have 
a  try  at  magazine  work.  Writing  stories  and  verses. 
Getting  some  accepted.  Getting  more  rejected.  The 
United  States  in  the  War.  Trying  to  enlist  and  being 
rejected  twice  for  underweight,  wondering,  fatuously, 
what  to  do  next.  Hegira  to  Binghamton.  Cottage  by 
the  river.  Lots  of  sleep  and  rustic  diet.  Gained 
weight.  Appearing  at  the  Binghamton  armory  for 
another  physical  examination.  First  drinking  many 
quarts  of  water.  Passed  examination! 

"July  23,  1917,  a  private  of  Co.  H.,  ist  Infantry, 
N.  Y.  N.  G.,  the  captain  of  which  was  an  old  school 
chum.  Drilling.  Blisters.  Hiking.  More  blisters. 
August,  a  troop  train  to  Van  Cortlandt  Park,  New 
York  City.  The  farewell  parade  of  the  New  York 
guardsmen  down  Fifth  Avenue.  September,  a  troop 
train  to  Camp  Wadsworth,  Spartanburg,  S.  C.  A 
wilderness,  at  first.  The  sport  of  kings — bunking  with 
private  soldiers,  the  best  companions  in  the  world! 
Raising  a  mustache  for  foreign  service.  December, 
still  in  camp !  The  breaking  up  of  the  old  'First'  In 
fantry  in  order  to  fill  other  regiments  of  the  division 
up  to  the  European  war  strength.  Transferring  to  the 
Sanitary  Train,  where  there  was  another  company  of 
Binghamton  lads  I  knew.  Talking  to  a  captain,  an 
old  friend,  who  said  seductively :  Chick,  if  you  want 
to  start  for  France  by  the  fifteenth  of  January,  join 
the  new  outfit  I'm  getting  up.'  Joining  it.  Mustache 


I  io  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

for  foreign  service  growing  fast.  January  15,  still 
in  camp.  February  15  ,  still  in  camp.  March  15, 
ditto.  April  15,  ditto.  (Unfair  to  mustache.)  May 
15,  ditto.  At  last  a  troop  train  to  an  embarkation 
camp.  Another  period  of  waiting  several  endless 
weeks.  Throbbing  mental  question  :  Why  doesn't  the 
President  put  me  in  a  branch  of  the  service  where  I'll 
get  somewhere  ?  Oh,  why  didn't  I  wait  to  be  drafted 
and  get  there  first?  .  .  .  Then,  at  length,  my  trans 
port.  .  .  . 

"Being  with  sanitary  troops,  I  expect  to  go  through 
the  war  unharmed  and  come  back  and  be  run  over  by 
a  baby  carriage." 

John  McClure 

John  McClure  of  Oklahoma,  youthful  writer  of 
modest  airs,  is  sponsored  by  that  able  critic,  Mr.  H.  L. 
Mencken,  one  of  the  editors  of  Smart  Set,  author  of 
serious  and  not  so  serious  critiques  and  who  declares 
that  his  judgment  of  poetry  is  based  solely  on  the 
beauty  of  poetry.  He  says,  "I  have  little  love  for 
long  or  ambitious  poems.  My  favorites  are  such  men 
as  Heinrich  Heine,  Robert  Herrick,  Thomas  Campion, 
Burns  at  his  best,  the  minor  Elizabethans,  old  ballads 
and  folksongs,  Mother  Goose.  Simple  airs  and  melo 
dies  are  what  delight  me  in  literature  most  keenly.  I 
mean  to  say  that  it  is  such  verse  as  the  above  that  has 
influenced  me  most  in  my  own  work.  Pve  a  great  deal 
of  affection  for  all  good  English  verse,  bar  none. 

"My  only  observation  on  American  poetry  had  bet 
ter  be  this,  which  puzzles  me;  out  of  a  great  many 
poets  who  do  occasional  splendid  things,  there  is  not 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  in 

one  who  does  consistently  fine  work,  not  one  who  is  a 
poet  of  large  significance,  unless  perhaps  Sara  Teas- 
dale.  I  have  great  admiration  and  respect  for  her." 

Mr.  McClure  first  appeared  an  object  for  considera 
tion  as  a  poet  in  the  pages  of  The  Smart  Set  and  his 
collected  poems,  many  of  which  had  appeared  in  this 
periodical,  were  afterwards  published  under  the  title 
of  "Airs  and  Ballads." 

When  Mr.  Mencken  finds  a  poet  or  a  writer  of  any 
sort  in  whom  he  believes,  his  belief  is  without  stint  as 
is  his  enthusiasm.  For  example,  he  writes  in  his  maga 
zine:  "What  I  find  in  these  modest  airs  (the  poems  of 
John  McClure)  is  what  the  late  Elijah  found  in  his 
still  small  voice ;  an  assurance  and  a  criticism — the  first 
of  the  making  of  songs  is  yet  a  living  art  among  us,  yet 
young,  yet  adroit,  above  all  yet  natural  and  innocent. 
In  brief,  McClure  is  the  born  poet,  the  poet,  first  and 
last,  the  poet  full-fledged  from  the  start,  as  opposed  to 
all  your  stock  company  of  sweating  poetizers.  His 
simple  and  perfect  songs  are  to  the  tortured  contrap 
tions  of  the  self -consecrated  messiahs  of  prosody,  with 
their  ding-dong  repetitions,  their  chopped  off  lines, 
their  cheap  shocks,  their  banal  theorizings,  their  idiotic 
fustian — these  songs  of  his  are  to  such  tedious  gab- 
blings  as  the  sonorous  lines  of  Swinburne  were  to  the 
cacophonous  splutters  of  Browning,  the  poet  of  peda 
gogues  and  old  maids,  male  and  female.  What  we 
have  here  is  the  Schubert  complex — the  whole  pack  of 
professors  and  polyphonists  routed  by  a  shepherd  play 
ing  a  pipe." 

Whether  one  shares  Mr.  Mencken's  whole-hearted 


ii2  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

enthusiasm  or  not,  John  McClure's  simple  songs  may 
best  be  judged  by  his  "Elf's  Song" : 

She  came  in  the  garden  walking 
When  shadows  begin  to  steal ; 

She  trod  upon  a  wing  o'  mine 
And  broke  it  with  her  heel. 

She  was  a  very  queen,  I  think, 

A  queen  from  the  West, 
I  should  have  only  smiled 

Had  she  stepped  on  my  breast. 

But  I  have  told  nobody, 

I  have  told  nobody  yet! 
I  have  told  nobody — 

Only  the  violet. 

Or  the  opening  lines  to  "The  Celts"  : 

We  are  the  gre}r  dreamers 

With  nets  of  moonlight 
That  always  go  a-hunting 

About  the  fall  o'  night. 

True,  there  are  some  immature  spots  in  his  work. 
There  is  a  fondness  for  comparisons  to  jewels  that  is 
similar  to  George  Sterling,  over-use  of  such  trite  and 
inexpressive  words  as  "red  gold,"  "white  silver," 
"lady,"  "hoary  head,"  and  "wee."  But  these  are  only 
specks  on  the  surface  of  such  lines  as : 

But  she  shall  dress  more  strangely  still: 
In  all  men's  eyes  she  shall  be  seen 

To  wear  my  little  silver  dreams 
Like  tinkling  trinkets  of  a  queen. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  113 

Ay,  queenlike,  she  shall  move  them  all 

To  adoration  and  desire ; 
For  she  shall  wear  my  golden  dreams 

As  though  they  were  a  robe  of  fire. 

Or  in  his  lines  called  "Man  to  Man" : 

Better  it  were,  my  brother, 

You  twain  had  never  met, 
Then  were  no  hearts  broken 

And  no  dream  to  forget. 

Now  you  must  not  remember, 

After  you  are  gone, 
The  mystic  magic  of  her  eyes 

At  twilight  nor  at  dawn. 

Now  you  must  not  remember 
The  songs  her  red  lips  sing 

Of  love  and  lovers'  ecstasy 
At  dawn  or  evening. 

An  interesting  comment  on  McClure's  work  was  re 
cently  made  to  me  by  one  of  his  contemporaries : 

"John  McClure's  'Airs  and  Ballads'  impress  me  as 
the  work  of  a  man  who  has  not  (and  perhaps,  cannot) 
outgrow  the  impulse  to  enthusiasm  which  is  character 
istic  of  young  writers  of  the  romantic  school.  There 
is  in  his  poems  a  certain  naivete,  a  certain  artless  sim 
plicity  which  his  very  real  lyrical  ability  makes  quite 
charming.  In  reading  him  I  feel  as  though  I  were  in 
the  presence  of  an  unusually  well-bred  youth  who 
wishes  to  forget  his  'good  breeding'  in  favor  of  a  more 
impulsive  and  less  'civilise'  attitude  toward  life  and 


ii4  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

toward  his  own  experiences.  The  result  is  not  without 
beauty  (at  times,  as  in  'The  Lass  of  Galilee'  the  author 
reaches  a  very  high  mark  of  poetic  feeling),  but  at  the 
same  time  I  imagine  that  I  detect  the  note  of  'fabrica 
tion';  not  the  species  of  deliberate  fabrication  prac 
tised  by  the  great  decadents  and  lovers  of  artifice  (as 
Huysmans,  Baudelaire,  Mendes,  Rimbaud,  'Maldoror' 
and  others)  but  a  kind  of  straining  after  pure  simplic 
ity  which  it  is  very  hard  to  succeed  in — especially  in 
these  days  when  nothing  can  escape  the  influence  of  the 
cosmopolitan  spirit.  .  .  .  However,  I  like  McClure; 
I  like  him  because  he  has  lyrical  charm,  because  he  is 
indifferent  to  all  the  ceremonials  of  adoration  for  the 
Muse  of  Poetry.  McClure  is  an  independent:  poetry 
is  not  a  ritual  with  him,  but  a  simple,  human  need.  I 
think  that,  if  he  should  ever  acquire  subtlety,  he  could 
with  his  technical  ability  turn  out  some  very  powerful 
things.  At  present  he  is  a  singer,  a  'troubadour' — 
and  perhaps  well  content  to  remain  one." 

Out  in  Oklahoma  with  its  sun-baked  roads,  fields  of 
corn  and  wheat  and  cotton,  McGure  lived  and  wrote 
until  the  war  when  he  entered  service  in  the  394th 
Cavalry.  It  must  be  gratifying  to  Oklahoma  and  the 
Middle  West  to  know  that  Oklahoma  has  produced  an 
American  poet  in  interesting  contrast  to  those  of  the 
New  England  states  and  the  East. 

McClure  was  born  in  Ardmore  on  December  19, 
1893,  of  a  Southern  family  of  Scotch  Irish  descent. 
He  is  a  graduate  of  the  University  of  Oklahoma,  of 
which  he  was  later  an  assistant  librarian. 

In  1913  and  1914  he  was  in  Paris  with  Henry  Mc- 
Cullough,  who  was  then  studying  art. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  115 

"I  did  nothing  whatever  there,"  says  Mr.  McClure, 
"except  catch  vers  libre,  from  which  I  believe  I  have 
recovered." 

"Poetry?  .  .  .  "  he  writes, 

"The  voice  that  leaps  up 

"With  the  spring  water 

"And  thunders 

"Out  of  the  mountain." 

Mr.  McClure  is  a  member  of  the  national  hobo  fra 
ternity  "Quo  Vadis"  and  has  tramped  about  2,000 
miles  in  the  Southwest. 

He  has  also  compiled  and  edited  "The  Stag's  Horn- 
Book,"  a  bachelor's  anthology  of  verse. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CHARLES    WHARTON    STORK,    GEORGE    STERLING,    LOUIS 

UNTERMEYER,    JOHN    GOULD   FLETCHER,    JOHN 

HALL  WHEELOCK 

Charles  Wharton  Stork 

Like  some  great  morality  play  written  in  lines  of 
clear  poetic  beauty,  is  Charles  Wharton  Stork's  "Sea 
and  Bay,"  which  he  chooses  to  call  a  poem  of  New 
England.  This  limitation,  however,  is  wrong,  for  it 
might  more  properly  be  called  The  Journey  of  Every 
Youth  as  it  is  the  story  of  Man's  spiritual  develop 
ment — his  restlessness  in  the  bay — the  home ;  his  long 
ing  for  the  sea — the  world  and  then  its  climactic  fusion 
of  sea  and  bay. 

So  that  at  last  within  me  bay  and  sea, 
My  peaceful  boyhood  and  my  stormy  prime, 
Unite  their  warring  natures  and  are  one. 

This  narrative  poem  is  the  best  of  Mr.  Stork's  poetic 
works,  superior  to  "The  Queen  of  Orplede,"  or  "Day 
Dreams  of  Greece,"  or  even  that  original  imaginative 
poem,  "Flying  Fish :  an  Ode." 

The  central  character  of  "Sea  and  Bay"  is  Alden 
Carr,  who  describes  his  youth : 

116 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  117 

I  made  no  friends ;  as  soon  as  school  was  done 

I  used  to  trudge  off  gravely  by  myself 

To  lord  it  in  the  kingdom  of  my  choice; 

A  pebbly  beach,  walled  in  on  every  side 

By  scarred  gray  cliffs  that  shut  the  world  of  school 

And  farm  completely  out,  yet  left  me  free 

To  share  the  gladness  of  the  romping  waves, 

And  steep  my  being  in  the  soft  warm  air. 

The  spirit  of  adventure,  desire  to  live,  a  weariness 
of  a  curbed  and  routine  life,  come  to  Alden  with  his 
first  sight  of  the  ocean. 

For  when  those  Atlas  arms  of  swimming  blue 
Reached  out  as  if  to  bring  heaven  down  to  me, 
I  knew  myself  akin  to  that  wide  scene 
By  the  great  throb  with  which  I  leaped  to  it  there 
And  caught  it  to  my  spirit. 

Written  for  the  main  part  in  free  verse,  but  ever 
possessing  harmonious  cadence,  there  are  various 
breaks  in  Stork's  general  style  with  lines  like  the  sea 
song  with  which  the  book  begins : 

I  have  lent  myself  to  thy  will,  O  Sea ! 

To  the  urge  of  thy  tidal  sway; 
My  soul  to  thy  lure  of  mystery, 
My  cheek  to  thy  lashing  spray. 

For  there's  never  a  man  whose  blood  runs  warm 
But  would  quaff  the  wine  of  the  brimming  storm. 
As  the  prodigal  lends  have  I  lent  to  thee, 
For  a  day  or  a  year  and  a  day. 

The  shores  recede,  the  great  sails  fill, 


Ii8  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

The  lee  rail  hisses  under, 
As  we  double  the  cape  of  Lighthouse  Hill 
Where  sea  and  harbor  sunder. 

Then  here's  to  a  season  of  glad  unrest ! 
With  an  anchor  of  hope  on  the  seaman's  breast, 
Till  I  claim  once  more  from  thy  savage  will 
A  soul  that  is  fraught  with  wonder. 

Mr.  Stork's  command  of  words  is  admirable,  and 
his  expression  of  life's  thoughts,  too  often  expressed 
tritely,  with  him  take  on  new  light : 

No  matter  how  or  where,  the  crucial  point 
Of  each  man's  life  is  when  he  leaves  the  bay, 
Spreads  his  white  sails  before  the  ruffling  breeze, 
And  takes  the  first  plunge  of  the  hollow  surge. 
Oh,  thrill  of  first  adventure!     Overhead 
Flew  pearly  cloudlets ;  on  our  lee  the  cliffs, 
So  formidable  once,  were  fading  low; 
Beneath,  the  cloven  waves'  translucent  green 
Spring  into  spray  along  the  dipping  stem; 
And  somewhere  out  beyond  those  curling  crests 
Lay,  golden  as  with  promise,  the  unknown. 

To  revert  again  to  the  theme  of  "Sea  and  Bay" — 
Alden,  leaving  behind  him  the  home  life  of  the  bay, 
visits  France  and  Italy.  He  sees  the  false  Paris  but 
later  discovers 

Like  a  deep  stream  that  runs  through  stagnant  pools, 
The  true  French  people,  clean  and  pure  and  strong. 

And  that 

Art  after  all  is  just  a  sort  of  dress 

For  soul:  sometimes  too  meagre,  oftener  though 

Too  rich. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  119 

Altho  Carr  is  disappointed  in  his  first  love,  when 
on  returning  home  from  a  long  trip,  he  learns  of  the 
betrothal  of  the  sweetheart  of  his  youth  to  his  brother, 
he  finally  finds  true  love  and  builds  a  home  in  sight 
of  both  bay  and  sea. 

Charles  Wharton  Stork  was  born  on  February  12, 
1 88 1,  in  Philadelphia  and  studied  at  Haverford,  Har 
vard  and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  He  has 
done  much  for  furthering  interests  in  modern  poetry 
both  in  America  and  abroad  as  Editor  of  Contemporary 
Verse,  a  monthly  magazine  devoted  solely  to  original 
poems.  He  makes  his  home  in  Philadelphia  but  in  the 
summer  lives  in  a  little  house  far  up  on  the  New  Eng 
land  coast  which  he  calls  "The  Stork's  Nest." 

George  Sterling 

There  is  a  certain  richness  of  words  that  dis 
tinguishes  the  poetry  of  George  Sterling,  whose  writ 
ings  were  first  so  popular  upon  the  Pacific  coast,  and 
which  in  good  time  have  found  their  way  into  the 
hearts  of  a  less  local  American  audience. 

Although  of  almost  perfect  craftsmanship,  Mr. 
Sterling's  poems  are  inclined  to  cloy  by  sheer  heavi 
ness  of  splendor.  An  example  of  this  is  found  in  the 
name  poem  of  his  collected  verse,  "The  House  of 
Orchids." 

And  in  its  antic  flight 
Behold  the  vampire-bat  veer  off  from  thee 

As  from  a  phantom  face, 
Or  watch  Antares'  light  peer  craftily 

Down  from  the  dank  and  moonless  sky, 


120  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

As  goblins'  eyes  might  gleam 

Or  baleful  rubies  glare, 
Muffled  in  smoke  or  incense-laden  air. 
And  thou,  most  weird  companion,  thou  dost  seem 

Some  mottled  moth  of  Hell, 

That  stealthily  might  fly 
To  hover  there  above  the  carnal  bell 
Of  some  black  lily,  still  and  venomous, 

And  poise  forever  thus. 

Sterling  delights  in  the  use  of  jewel-like  compari 
sons,  and  many  of  his  poems  scintillate  with  this 
jeweled  brilliancy.  In  them  is  color  in  abundance  and 
often  a  touch  of  delicate  fantasy : 

Then  from  the  maelstroms  of  the  surf  arose 
With  laughter,  mystical,  and  up  the  sands 
Came  two  that  walked  with  intertwining  hands 
Amid  those  ocean  snows. 

Ghostly  they  shone  before  the  lofty  spray — 
Fairer  than  gods  and  naked  as  the  moon, 
The  foamy  fillets  at  their  ankles  strewn 
Less  marble-white  than  they. 

Laughing  they  stood,  then  to  our  beacon's  glare 
Drew  nearer,  as  we  watched  in  mad  surprise 
The  scarlet-flashing  lips,  the  sea-green  eyes, 
The  red  and  tangled  hair. 

George  Sterling  was  born  at  Sag  Harbor,  New  York, 
on  December  i,  1869,  the  son  of  George  Ansel  and 
Mary  Parker  (Havens)  Sterling.  He  was  educated 
in  private  and  public  schools  and  at  St.  Charles  Col 
lege,  Elliott  City,  Mdt 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  121 

He  was  married  to  Miss  Carrie  Rand,  of  Oakland, 
Cal.,  February  7,  1896. 

Mr.  Sterling's  works  include  "The  House  of  Or 
chids,"  "The  Testimony  of  the  Suns"  and  "A  Wine 
of  Wizardy." 

Louis  Untermeyer 

In  the  dedication  of  "These  Times,"  by  Louis  Un 
termeyer,  he  has  written  "To  Robert  Frost,  Poet  and 
Person."  Were  these  too  few  and  inadequate  com 
ments  on  Mr.  Untermeyer's  work  to  bear  a  dedication 
it  would  read,  "To  Louis  Untermeyer,  Poet  and  Friend 
of  Poets" — for  his  talents,  both  as  poet  and  critic,  have 
fallen  upon  fertile  soil. 

Mr.  Untermeyer's  verses  have  appeared  in  various 
magazines,  and  include  "First  Love,"  "Challenge — 
and  Other  Poems,"  "Heinrich  Heine,"  a  translation  of 
325  poems,  and  "These  Times." 

His  poems  show  a  broad  horizon  as  a  creator  and 
interpreter.  Of  this  last  characteristic  one  needs  but 
turn  to  his  translations  of  Heine,  which  are  among  the 
best  that  have  been  done. 

As  a  realist,  note  the  following  from  "On  the  Pali 
sades"  : 

Like  a  blue  snake  uncoiled, 

The  lazy  river,  stretching  between  the  banks, 

Smoothed  out  its  rippling  folds,  splotchy  with  sunlight, 

And  slept  again,  basking  in  silence. 

A  sea-gull  chattered  stridently; 

We  heard,  breaking  the  rhythms  of  the  song, 

The  cough  of  the  asthmatic  motor-boat 

Sputtering  toward  the  pier.  .  .  , 

And  stillness  again, 


122  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

He  declared  to  Beauty 

You  shall  not  lead  me,  Beauty — 

No,  on  no  more  passionate  and  never-ending  quests. 

I  am  tired  of  stumbling  after  you, 

Through  wild,  familiar  forests  and  strange  bogs ; 

Tired  of  breaking  my  heart  following  a  shifting  light. 

Mr.  Untermeyer,  who  is  thirty-two  years  of  age,  de 
clares  that  his  childhood  was  a  "school-hating"  one, 
and  his  Alma  Mater,  the  "radical"  De  Witt  Clin 
ton  High  School. 

He  says  that  as  a  younger  man — if  one  may  speak 
in  such  terms  of  thirty-two — his  taste  in  literature  was 
execrable.  "There  was  even  a  time  when  I  consid 
ered  Alfred  Noyes  a  great  poet.  My  taste  in  music 
was  a  far  different  matter.  At  sixteen  I  came  peri 
lously  near  being  a  concert  pianist — I  can  still  play 
most  of  Beethoven,  Brahms,  and  Schumann  without 
threats  from  the  neighbors.  Started  to  write  extremely 
bad  essays  and  even  worse  poetry  at  the  age  of  seven 
teen.  Up  to  then,  my  life  was  blameless !  Upon  the 
birth  of  a  son,  I  became  convinced  that  children  must 
be  fed.  My  wife  also  seemed  to  require  food.  Where 
upon,  after  flirting  with  the  idea  of  writing  songs  for 
the  concert  stage,  I  entered  the  jewelry  manufacturing 
concern  of  my  father— of  which  establishment  I  am 
now  designer,  superintendent,  and  vice-president." 

John  Gould  Fletcher 

Miss  Amy  Lowell,  who  classes  herself  with  the 
imagists,  declares  that  imagism  is  presentation,  not 
representation,  and  for  example  cites  Mr.  Fletcher's 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  123 

poem,  "The  Calm,"  conforming  to  the  imagists'  idea  of 
not  speaking  of  the  sea  as  "the  rolling  wave"  or  the 
"vasty  deep"  but  thus: 

At  noon  I  shall  see  waves  flashing, 
White  power  of  spray. 

The  steamers,  stately, 

Kick  up  white  puffs  of  spray  behind  them. 

The  boiling  wake 

Merges  in  the  blue-black  mirror  of  the  sea. 

That  suggestion,  the  implication  of  something  rather 
than  the  statement  of  it  which  is  one  of  the  marked 
characteristics  of  imagists'  verse  is  thus  demonstrated 
by  Mr.  Fletcher  in  "The  Well" : 

The  well  is  not  used  now 
Its  waters  are  tainted. 

I  remember  there  was  once  a  man  went  down 

To  clean  it. 

He  found  it  very  cold  and  deep, 

With  a  queer  niche  in  one  of  its  sides, 

From  which  he  hauled  forth  buckets  of  bricks  and  dirt. 

At  the  age  of  eleven  years,  John  Gould  Fletcher  was 
sent  to  school  for  the  first  time  and  then  he  began  to 
write  verses.  In  1899  ne  entered  high  school  and  was 
graduated  in  1902.  Later  to  Philips  Academy,  An- 
dover,  to  prepare  for  Harvard,  which  plans  he  aban 
doned  and  sailed  to  Europe  in  August  of  1908.  He 
has  lived  much  abroad  since  and  his  European  life 
rather  than  American  is  reflected  in  a  major  portion 
of  his  work. 


I24  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

An  interesting  bit  of  art  is  his  "The  Vowels"  which 
he  dedicated  to  Leon  Bakst: 

A  light  and  shade,  E  green,  I  blue,  U  purple  and  yellow, 

O  red, 
All  over  my  soul  and  song  your  lambent  variations  are 

spread. 

A,  flaming  caravans  of  day  advancing  with  stately  art 
Through  pale,  ashy  deserts  of  grey  to  the  shadowy  dark 

of  the  heart ; 

Barbaric  clangor  of  cataracts,  suave  caresses  of  sails, 
Caverned  abysms  of  silence,  assaults  of  infuriate  gales ; 
Dappled  vibrations  of  black  and  white  that  the  bacchanal 

valleys  track; 
Candid  and  waxlike  jasmine,  amaranth  sable  black. 

E,  parakeets  of  emerald  shrieking  perverse  in  the  trees, 
Iridescent   and   restless   chameleons    tremulous   in   the 

breeze, 

Peace  on  the  kaves,  peace  on  the  sea-green  sea, 
Ethiopian  timbrels  that  tinkle  melodiously : 
I,  Iris  of  night,  hyacinthine,  semi-green, 
Intensity  of  sky  and  of  distant  sea  dimly  seen, 
Chryselephantine  image,  Athena  violet-crowned, 
Beryl-set  sistra  of  Isis  ashiver  with  infinite  sound: 
Bells  with  amethyst  tongues,  silver  bells,  E  and  I, 
Tears  that  drip  on  the  wires,  Aeolian  melody ! 

It  was  under  the  title  "Irraditions — Sand  and 
Spray"  that  Mr.  Fletcher's  style  of  writing  was  pre 
sented  in  April,  1915,  here.  In  his  preface  he  argues 
in  favor  of  vers  libre.  He  says :  "The  basis  of  Eng 
lish  poetry  is  rhythm,  or,  as  some  would  prefer  to  call 
it,  cadence.  This  rhythm  is  obtained  by  mingling 
stressed  and  unstressed  syllables.  .  .  . 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  125 

"I  maintain  that  poetry  is  capable  of  as  many  grada 
tions  in  cadence  as  music  is  in  time.  We  can  have  a 
rapid  group  of  syllables — what  is  called  a  line — suc 
ceeded  by  a  slow  heavy  one;  like  the  swift  scurrying 
of  the  wave  and  the  sullen  dragging  of  itself  away. 
Or  we  can  gradually  increase  or  decrease  our  tempo, 
creating  accelerando  and  rallentando  effects." 

In  April,  1916  came  "Goblins  and  Pagodas"  which 
contains  his  much  discussed  "Green  Symphony." 

In  contrast  to  Mr.  Robinson's  picture  of  Lincoln,  it 
is  of  interest  to  note  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Fletcher's 
study  of  the  same  theme : 

Like  a  gaunt,  craggly  pine 

Which  lifts  its  head  above  the  mournful  sandhills; 
And  patiently,  through  dull  years  of  bitter  silence, 
Untended  and  uncared  for,  starts  to  grow. 

Ungainly,  labouring,  huge, 

The   wind  of   the  north   has   twisted  and  gnarled   its 

branches ; 
Yet  in  the  heat  of  midsummer  days,  when  thunderclouds 

ring  the  horizon, 

A  nation  of  men  shall  rest  beneath  its  shade. 

/ 

John  Hall  Wheelock 

Three  books  of  love  poems,  poems  of  nature,  red 
olent  of  the  sea,  and  the  various  wonders  of  the  stars 
and  flowers,  bear  the  name  of  John  Hall  Wheelock 
as  author.  In  1911  Mr.  Wheelock's  "The  Human 
Fantasy"  was  published.  Here  are  pictures  of  the  city 
— more  specifically  such  things  as  "The  Italian  Res 
taurant"  : 


126  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"And  the  canary  silent  on  the  wall 

Trilled  through  the  smoky  air; 
The  clever  bird,  it  never  sang  at  all 

He  said,  till  she  was  there." 

And  "The  Theater-Hour" : 

"At  night  the  city's  dazzling  ways 

Flare  dizzily,  like  fierce  and  flaming  suns, 
A  million  lights  all  scattering  at  once 

A  garish  glare  abroad  and  desolate  blaze. 

The  narrow  canons  and  the  gorges  deep 
Cut  south  and  north  in  many  a  lurid  line, 
Like  the  starred  streets  of  luminous  heaven  shine 

That  from  the  center  to  the  circle  sweep." 

A  year  later  Mr.  Wheelock  brought  out  "The  Be 
loved  Adventure,"  a  generous  volume  of  verse,  con 
spicuous  for  its  sea  poems.  Typical  of  the  best  of 
these  are: 

The  somber  waters  move  where  sky  and  cloud-line  are, — 
The  odor  of  all  the  sea  is  huge  within  the  night; 

Within  her  spray  hangs  drenched  the  jeweled  evening  star. 

Still  the  hand  of  twilight  with  darkness  strokes  and  stills 
The  somber  and  immense  breast  of  the  swelling  sea, 

And  the  pale  hand  of  dawn  across  the  darkness  spills 
Her  clear  and  crystal  cup  of  radiant  ecstasy — ; 

The  white,  immaculate  waste  of  morning  sobs  and  thrills ! 

His  "Moon-Dawn"  shows  his  ardent  worship  of  the 
beautiful : 

"O  Loveliness !     O  Light !     God !    O  seraphic  Breath ! 
Radiant  Supreme !     For  this  one  moment  now 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  127 

I  thank  Thee,  thank  Thee,  thank  Thee;  I  bless  Thee 

from  beneath — 

I  thank  Thee, — I  cannot  say — I  cannot  tell  Thee  how! 
O  Beauty,  thou  atonest  for  all  things,  even  death !" 

Mr.  Wheelock  has  an  almost  Balzacian  relish  in 
writing  about  dead  loves,  a  theme  of  which  he  appar 
ently  never  tires,  and  his  lines  are  filled  with  such 
descriptions. 

His  latest  work,  "Love  and  Liberation,"  contains 
"The  Songs  of  Adshed  of  Meru  and  Other  Poems." 
Here  is  the  oriental  influence  upon  Mr.  Wheelock's 
writing,  conspicuous  among  which  are  his  lines  on 
"Bird-Songs  and  Roses,"  which  ends  with  the  follow 
ing  song : 

Life  went  forth  in  the  strength 
Of  the  morning  from  his  lair — 

The  first  young  joy  he  found, 
He  seized  it  by  the  hair. 

So  ruthlessly  your  heart 

Against  my  own  I  pressed, 
And  whirled  against  my  own 

The  radiance  of  your  breast. 

But  clinging  about  my  neck 

Your  arms  to  a  taming  yoke 
Grew,  that  stilled  my  heart; 

Love  within  me  awoke. 

Then  at  first  was  I  sad — , 

But  the  old,  the  rebellious  strength 

Tore  my  lips  apart, 

Turned  to  a  song  at  length ! 


128  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Song  at  the  source  of  Song 

Sweet  it  is  to  confess, 
And  loveliness  to  humble 

At  the  feet  of  Loveliness. 

John  Hall  Wheelock  was  born  at  Far  Rockaway, 
Long  Island,  New  York,  in  1886.  He  attended  Har 
vard  University,  the  University  of  Gottingen,  and 
the  University  of  Berlin.  He  is  a  conspicuous  member 
of  the  Poetry  Society  of  America,  and  makes  his  home 
in  New  York  City.  As  a  contributor  to  Scribners, 
Harpers,  and  The  Century  magazines  his  work  has 
been  widely  circulated.  His  works  include  "The  Hu 
man  Fantasy,"  "The  Beloved  Adventure"  and  "Love 
and  Liberation." 


CHAPTER  XII 

CARL  SANDBURG,  FREDERICK  MORTIMER  CLAPP,  DONALD 

EVANS,  EZRA  POUND,  BENJAMIN  DE  CASSERES, 

ROY  HELTON 

Carl  Sandburg 

"Carl  Sandburg  is  an  observer  with  sympathy  but 
without  fear.  .  .  .  He  puts  words  to  the  uses  of 
bronze.  His  music  at  times  is  of  clearest  sweetness 
like  the  tinkling  of  blue  chisels,  at  other  times  it  has 
the  appropriate  harshness  of  resisting  metal." 

So  Carl  Sandburg  is  endorsed  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters 
for  his  "Chicago  Poems,"  published  in  April,  1916. 

A  number  of  poems  included  in  this  certainly  orig 
inal  volume  were  first  printed  in  Poetry:  A  Magazine 
of  Verse,  Chicago,  Poetry,  and  in  Reedy's  Mirror. 
Their  creator  is  a  man  who  glories  in  free  verse, 
whose  lines  are  sometimes  almost  primeval  in  their 
intensity  but  they  are  American  to  the  core,  and  re 
echo  something  of  Whitman  in  both  form  and  expres 
sion. 

Sandburg's  "Chicago"  has  much  of  the  vim  found  in 
Whitman's  lines: 

Hog  Butcher  for  the  World, 
Tool  Maker,  Stacker  of  Wheat, 

129 


130  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Player  with  Railroads  and  the  Nation's  Freight  Handler ; 
Stormy,  husky,  brawling, 
City  of  the  Big  Shoulders: 

They  tell  me  you  are  wicked  and  I  believe  them,  for  I 

have  seen  your  painted  women  under  the  gas  lamps 

luring  the  farm  boys. 
And  they  tell  me  you  are  crooked  and  I  answer:     Yes, 

it  is  true  I  have  seen  the  gunman  kill  and  go  free 

to  kill  again. 
And  they  tell  me  you  are  brutal  and  my  reply  is :     On  the 

faces  of  women  and  children  I  have  seen  the  marks 

of  wanton  hunger. 

Carl  Sandburg  was  born  in  Galesburg,  Illinois,  in 
1878  of  Swedish  parents.  His  mother  had  but  two 
years  of  schooling  and  his  father,  three  months.  In 
Sweden  he  bore  the  name  of  August  Johnson,  but 
there  were  so  many  other  August  Johnsons  on  the 
pay  roll  of  the  Burlington  railroad  shop  where  he  was 
employed  as  a  blacksmith  that  the  family  name  was 
changed  to  Sandburg. 

Carl,  when  thirteen  years  old,  left  school  to  enjoy  the 
sights  of  Galesburg  from  the  seat  of  a  milk- wagon, 
which  position  he  resigned  to  become  respectively, 
porter  in  a  barber  shop,  scenery-mover  in  a  theatre, 
driver  of  a  truck  in  a  brickyard  kiln,  and  moulder  of 
clay  in  a  pottery  shop. 

The  call  of  the  West  entered  this  youth's  being  at 
the  age  of  seventeen.  He  dish-washed  in  Denver, 
worked  in  a  construction  camp,  threshed  wheat  in 
Kansas,  and  finally  returned  to  Galesburg  to  learn  the 
painter's  trade.  And  then  war  with  Spain  was  de- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  131 

clared  and  Sandburg  enlisted  in  Company  C  of  the 
Sixth  Illinois  Volunteers,  the  first  company  to  set  foot 
on  the  island  of  Porto  Rico.  When  mustered  out,  he 
had  $100.00  in  cash,  the  largest  sum  he  had  ever  pos 
sessed  in  his  life.  He  forthwith  returned  to  Galesburg 
ajid  took  a  course  in  Lombard  College.  At  the  end 
of  his  first  year  various  of  the  men  of  his  military 
company  voted  him  a  cadetship  at  West  Point,  where 
he  passed  99%  physically  and  qualified  in  everything 
but  arithmetic,  which  was  a  sorry  failure. 

Back  to  Lombard  he  went  where  he  earned  his 
tuition  and  expense  by  ringing  the  college  bell  and  act 
ing  as  janitor  in  the  gymnasium.  Then  the  desire 
for  self-expression  came,  and  he  became  editor  of  his 
college  monthly  paper,  and  editor  and  chief  writer  of 
an  annual  called  The  Cannibal,  and  the  college  cor 
respondent  for  a  newspaper. 

Galesburg  at  the  time  of  Sandburg's  stay  was  des 
tined  to  produce  some  noteworthy  men,  among  whom 
were  John  Finley,  the  educator ;  Frank  H.  Sisson,  well- 
known  in  the  magazine  world;  Ben  B.  Hampton  and 
other  men  who  have  since  become  famous  as  writers, 
singers,  and  explorers. 

Sandburg  left  college  in  1907,  and  began  the  trip 
to  Wisconsin  where  he  spoke  on  street  corners  and  at 
factory  gates,  wrote  leaflets  and  pamphlets,  and  worked 
as  a  district  organizer  for  the  Social-Democratic  party 
of  Wisconsin.  He  also  worked  on  various  newspapers 
and  magazines,  and  is  at  present  on  the  editorial  staff 
of  the  Chicago  Daily  News. 

Sandburg  declares  that  his  "pals"  are  his  wife  and 


132  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

two  daughters  who  have  cured  him  forever  of  the 
wanderlust. 

Carl  Sandburg  was  awarded  the  Helen  Haire  Lev- 
inson  prize  of  $200  in  1914  by  The  Poetry  magazine 
editorial  board  for  the  "best  poem  written  by  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States"  and  submitted  to  Poetry.  The 
editorial  board  was  divided  two  to  two,  and  the  de 
ciding  vote  was  cast  by  Hobart  Chatfield-Taylor. 

Sandburg's  poems  are  generally  written  first  in  a 
pocket  note-book  "at  or  near  some  storm  center  down 
town  in  the  daytime."  They  are  then  rewritten  at 
home  at  night.  His  latest  work  is  "The  Corn  Husk- 
ers,"  published  in  the  fall  of  1918. 

Whenever  a  Chicagoan  pays  tribute  to  the  Muses  of 
Poetry  and  Prose,  one  is  always  prepared  for  some 
sort  of  a  slap  at  Broadway.  To  witness  Mr.  Sand 
burg's  idea  of  that  great  avenue, — 

BROADWAY 

I  shall  never  forget  you,  Broadway, 
Your  golden  and  calling  lights. 

I'll  remember  you  long, 
Tall-walled  river  of  rush  and  play. 

Hearts  that  know  you  hate  you 

And  lips  that  have  given  you  laughter 

Have  gone  to  their  ashes  of  life  and  its  roses, 

Cursing  the  dreams  that  were  lost 

In  the  dust  of  your  harsh  and  trampled  stones. 

In  the  following  poem,  however,  Mr.  Sandburg  has 
brought  into  play  all  the  beauty  of  words,  of  which  art 
he  is  master. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  133 

In  the  loam  we  sleep, 
In  the  cool  moist  loam, 
To  the  lull  of  years  that  pass, 
And  the  break  of  stars. 

From  the  loam,  then, 
The  soft  warm  loam, 

We  rise; 

To  shape  of  rose  leaf, 
Of  face  and  shoulder, 

We  stand,  then, 

To  a  whiff  of  life 
Lifted  to  the  silver  of  the  sun 
Over  and  out  of  the  loam 
A  day. 

This  poem  is  in  "Others,  An  Anthology  of  the  New 
Verse"  edited  by  Alfred  Kreymborg. 

The  section  of  his  book  devoted  to  his  war  poems 
is  worthy  of  consideration  among  some  of  the  most 
striking  lines  that  have  found  their  inspiration  in  the 
World  War. 

MURMURINGS  IN  A  FIELD  HOSPITAL 

(They  picked  him  up  in  the  grass  where  he  had  lain  two 
days  in  the  rain  with  a  piece  of  shrapnel  in  his  lungs.) 

Come  to  me  only  with  playthings  now.  .  .  . 

A  picture  of  a  singing  woman  with  blue  eyes 

Standing  at  a  fence  of  hollyhocks,  poppies  and  sun 
flowers.  .  .  . 

Or  an  old  man  I  remember  sitting  with  children  telling 
stories 

Of  days  that  never  happened  anywhere  in  the  world.  .  .  . 


134  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

No  more  iron  cold  and  real  to  handle, 

Shaped  for  a  drive  straight  ahead. 

Bring  me  only  beautiful  useless  things. 

Only  old  home  things  touched  at  sunset  in  the  quiet.  .  .  . 

And  at  the  window  one  day  in  summer 

Yellow  of  the  new  crock  of  butter 

Stood  against  the  red  of  new  climbing  roses.  .  .  . 

And  the  world  was  all  playthings. 

WARS 

In  the  old  wars  drum  of  hoofs  and  the  beat  of  shod  feet. 
In  the  new  wars  hum  of  motors  and  the  tread  of  rubber 

tires. 
In  the  wars  to  come  silent  wheels  and  whirr  of  rods  not 

yet  dreamed  out  in  the  heads  of  men. 

In  the  old  wars  kings  quarreling  and  thousands  of  men 
following. 

In  the  new  wars  kings  quarreling  and  millions  of  men 
following. 

In  the  wars  to  come  kings  kicked  under  the  dust  and  mil 
lions  of  men  following  great  causes  not  yet  dreamed 
out  in  the  heads  of  men. 

The  poem  of  Sandburg's  which  shows  how  poetic 
form  in  its  generalities  may  be  disregarded  and  still 
be  effective  is  shown  in  "Sheep" : 

Thousands  of  sheep,  soft-footed,  black-nosed  sheep — 
one  by  one  going  up  the  hill  and  over  the  fence — one  by 
one  four-footed  pattering  up  and  over — one  by  one  wig 
gling  their  stub  tails  as  they  take  the  short  jump  and  go 
over — one  by  one  silently  unless  for  the  multitudinous 
drumming  of  their  hoofs  as  they  move  on  and  go  over — 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  135 

thousands  and  thousands  of  them  in  the  grey  haze  of 
evening  just  after  sundown — one  by  one  slanting  in  a 
long  line  to  pass  over  the  hill — 

I  am  the  slow,  long-legged  Sleepyman  and  I  love  you, 
sheep  in  Persia,  California,  Argentine,  Australia,  or  Spain 
— you  are  the  thoughts  that  help  me  when  I,  the  Sleepy 
man,  lay  my  hands  on  the  eyelids  of  the  children  of  the 
world  at  eight  o'clock  every  night — you  thousands  and 
thousands  of  sheep  in  a  procession  of  dusk  making  an 
endless  multitudinous  drumming  on  the  hills  with  your 
hoofs. 

Frederick  Mortimer  Clapp 

In  "New  York  and  Other  Verses"  Frederick  Morti 
mer  Clapp  approaches  the  standards  of  writing  laid 
down  by  Whitman.  Certainly  no  poet  since  Whit 
man's  day  has  gauged  better  the  pulse  of  the  city, 
than  Clapp.  The  soul  of  the  city  that  Ernest  Poole 
depicts  so  well  in  "The  Harbor"  is  done  by  Clapp  in 
"New  York  and  Other  Verses" ;  bear  witness  to  the 
titles  even  that  he  selects — "My  Own  City,"  "Ware 
houses,"  "Steam,"  "Trade,"  and  "Brooklyn  Bridge." 

Here  is  a  poet  whose  use  of  words  achieves  a  de 
scriptive  value  found  in  the  work  of  too  few  American 
poets.  In  his  poem,  "The  Warehouses"  he  writes: 

.  .  .  the  curd-white  soaps  that  they  make  in  Jaffa, 

crated  in  cubes  and  inert  and  labelled — 

quantity,  quality,  weight  and  size; 

and  a  hundred  thousand  sacks  of  grain 

in  which  lies  hidden 

a  whole  fierce  summer's  sun  on  Dakotan  prairies — 

a  hundred  thousand  sacks  of  grain 

stacked  like  cubes  and  inert  and  labelled. 


136  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

There  are  floors  that  groan  with  figs  of  Smyrna, 

and  Biskran  dates; 

there  are  cumquats  from  the  Inland  Sea, 

crated  and  stacked  and  inert  and  labelled ; 

there  are  stiffened  hides  of  a  race  of  cattle 

that  hardly  a  year  ago 

filled  the  skies  with  the  dust  of  their  trampling 

on  Argentine  plateaux, 

bale  upon  bale  and  inert  and  labelled. 

Frederick  Mortimer  Clapp  was  born  in  New  York 
City  on  July  26,  1879.  He  prepared  under  a  private 
tutor  and  entered  the  College  of  the  City  of  New  York 
in  January  of  the  Sophomore  year.  He  was  awarded 
two  year  honors  in  English,  and  secured  the  Larned 
Fellowship  and  was  a  member  of  Phi  Gamma  Delta  be 
fore  entering  Yale.  He  was  married  to  Miss  Maud 
Caroline  Ede,  author  of  that  remarkable  book,  "A 
Green  Tent  in  Flanders,"  one  of  the  most  artistic 
achievements  to  come  out  of  the  World  War. 

Mr.  Clapp's  publications  include:  "On  Certain 
Drawings  of  Pontormo,"  "Les  Dessins  de  Pontormo," 
"II  ritratto  d'  Allessandro  de'Medici  nella  raccolta 
Johnson,"  "On  the  Overland,"  "On  the  Overland  and 
Other  Poems,"  "Jacopo  Carucci  de  Pontormo,  His 
Life  and  Work,"  and  "New  York  and  Other  Poems." 

Mr.  Clapp  is  now  serving  in  France  as  a  Lieutenant 
in  the  22nd  Aero  Squadron,  American  Expeditionary 
Forces. 

Donald  Evans 

"Sonnets  from  the  Patagonian"  was  the  opening  gun 
jn  the  Modernists'  war  against  accepted  literary  tradi- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  137 

tions  and  Donald  Evans,  the  author,  became  a  veri 
table  target  for  the  critics.  There  was  much  damning 
and  some  praise.  To  the  orthodox  he  was  a  mad  man, 
"a  futurist  charlatan,"  "an  insincere  poseur,"  "a  mon 
ster  of  salacity" ;  to  the  liberal  he  opened  up  a  new  vista 
with  his  satires  on  sex  and  sanity,  which  only  now 
are  beginning  to  be  really  understood.  Such  lines  as 

For  I  had  bitten  sharp  kiss  after  kiss 
Devoutly,  till  her  sleek  young  body  bled. 

Then  Carlo  came ;  he  shone  like  a  new  sin. 

certainly  were  destined  to  stir  up  a  Puritanical  rip 
ple  among  those  accustomed  to  traditional  ways.  As 
for  "In  the  Vices,"  these  lines  brought  upon  his  head 
the  accusation  of  sheer  vulgarity. 

In  a  little  booklet  on  "The  Art  of  Donald  Evans" 
Mr.  Hollis  calls  him  "the  comedian  of  modern  verse, 
a  curiously  vivid  figure,  never  commonplace."  It 
was  not,  however,  until  Mr.  Evans'  second  book  of 
verse,  "Sonnets  From  the  Patagonian,"  was  published 
in  1914  that  he  became  generally  known  to  modern 
poetry  readers.  In  six  weeks'  time,  every  line  of  his 
book  had  been  quoted  in  different  reviews.  Here 
were  novel  phonetics,  strange  new  values  and  harmon 
ies.  Donald  Evans  is,  however,  entitled  to  the  laurels 
of  the  pioneer  and  for  such  lines  as  these  in  "Extreme 
Unction"  due  value  must  be  given  him : 

Across  the  rotting  pads  in  the  lily  lake 
Her  gesture  floated  toward  the  iris  bed, 
Wrapped  in  a  whispered  perfume  of  the  dead, 
And  her  gaze  followed  slowly  in  its  wake. 


138  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Now  was  the  summons  come,  she  must  obey, 
For  Beauty  pleaded  from  the  charnel  house, 
For  violet  nights  and  violent  carouse 
To  free  her  from  the  cerements  of  decay. 

Crapulous  hands  reach  out  to  strangle  thee, 
And  every  moment  is  a  winding-sheet, 
With  bats  to  chant  corruption's  litany. 
Be  thou  a  torch  to  flash  fanfaronade, 
And  as  the  earth  crumbles  beneath  thy  feet 
Flaunt  thou  the  glitter  of  a  new  brocade ! 

"Her  Smile"  presents  a  very  different  study: 

Her  hidden  smile  was  full  of  little  breasts, 

And  with  her  two  white  hands  she  stroked  her  fears, 

The  while  the  serpent  peered  at  her  arched  ears, 

And  night's  grim  hours  stalked  in,  unbidden  guests. 

A  noise  was  in  her  eyes  that  sang  of  scorn, 

And  round  her  voice  there  gleamed  a  nameless  dread, 

As  though  her  lips  were  hungry  for  the  dead, 

Yet  knew  the  food  of  dawn  would  be  forlorn. 

The  cold  hours  ebbed,  and  still  she  held  her  throne ; 
Across  the  sky  the  lightning  made  mad  play, 
And  then  the  scarlet  screams  stood  forth  revealed. 
She  turned  her  back,  and  grasped  a  monotone ; 
It  answered  all ;  she  lived  again  that  day 
She  triumphed  in  the  tragic  turnip  field. 

Donald  Evans  was  born  in  Philadelphia  in  1884, 
was  educated  at  Haverford  College  and  under  tutors 
in  England.  He  took  up  newspaper  writing  in  1905 
and  continued  in  this  work  until  1917,  producing  the 
following  books  in  the  meanwhile; 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  139 

.  "Discords,"  "Two  Deaths  In  the  Bronx,"  "Nine 
Poems  From  a  Valetudinarium"  and  "Sonnets  From 
the  Patagonian." 

Donald  Evans  was  married  to  Leah  Winslow  in 
1907.  His  second  marriage,  to  Esther  Porter,  was  in 
1918. 

Upon  our  declaration  of  war  in  May,  1917,  he  en 
listed  in  the  army  concerning  which  he  wrote  the 
following  to  his  friend,  Cornwall  Hollis : 

"Before  you  have  seen  my  book  through  the  press 
I  may  be  dead.  With  all  my  heart  I  hope  I  shall  not 
come  back,  for  then  impersonally  I  shall  have  fallen 
for  a  cause  in  which  I  have  no  faith.  What  more  dis 
tinguished  end  for  an  incurable  poseur?  Have  I  not 
been  called  that?  Plant,  I  beg  you,  migonette  to  en 
circle  my  arrowroot  fields." 

Ezra  Pound 

"All  talk  on  modern  poetry,  by  people  who  know," 
wrote  Carl  Sandburg  in  Poetry,  "ends  with  dragging 
in  Ezra  Pound  somewhere.  He  may  be  named  only 
to  be  cursed  as  wanton  and  mocker,  poseur,  trifler 
and  vagrant.  Or  he  may  be  classed  as  filling  a  niche 
today  like  that  of  Keats  in  a  preceding  epoch.  The 
point  is,  he  will  be  mentioned." 

This  is  Ezra  Pound  in  a  nutshell.  Critics  have 
found  him  primarily  a  scholar,  a  translator,  declared 
that  his  early  work  was  beautiful  or  that  his  latter 
work  was  indicative  of  little  but  cheap  advertisement. 
Then  there  has  been  that  following  who  have  found 
in  him  a  leader  of  untrammelled  thought  and  poetic 


I4o  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

expression,  a  sincere  poet  and  not  a  fantastic,  erratic 
poseur. 

Ezra  Pound's  first  book  was  published  in  Venice 
just  before  he  took  up  his  residence  in  London  in 
1908.  "A  Lume  Spento"  was  its  title,  and  of  it  a 
Venetian  critic  wrote :  "Wild  and  haunting  stuff,  abso 
lutely  poetic,  original,  imaginative,  passionate,  and 
spiritual.  Those  who  do  not  consider  it  crazy  may 
well  consider  it  inspired.  Coming  after  the  trite  and 
decorous  verse  of  most  of  our  decorous  poets,  this  poet 
seems  like  a  minstrel  of  Provence  at  a  suburban  musi 
cal  evening.  .  .  .  The  unseizable  magic  of  poetry  is  in 
the  queer  paper  volume,  and  words  are  no  good  in 
describing  it" 

From  Venice  Mr.  Pound  went  to  London  with  his 
little  book,  and  here  an  English  edition  was  brought 
out  by  Mr.  Elkin  Mathews.  In  a  little  book  called 
"Ezra  Pound:  His  Metric  and  Poetry,"  published  by 
Alfred  A.  Knopf,  the  following  lines  are  of  particular 
interest : 

"Ezra  Pound  has  been  fathered  with  vers  libre  in 
English,  with  all  its  vices  and  virtues.  The  term  is  a 
loose  one — any  verse  is  called  'free'  by  people  whose 
ears  are  not  accustomed  to  it — in  the  second  place, 
Pound's  use  of  this  medium  has  shown  the  temperance 
of  the  artist,  and  his  belief  in  it  as  a  vehicle  is  not  that 
of  the  fanatic.  He  has  said  himself  that  when  one 
has  the  proper  material  for  a  sonnet,  one  should  use 
the  sonnet  form;  but  that  it  happens  very  rarely  to 
any  poet  to  find  himself  in  possession  of  just  the  block 
of  stuff  which  can  perfectly  be  modelled  into  the  son 
net.  It  is  true  that  up  to  very  recently  it  was  impos- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  141 

sible  to  get  free  verse  printed  in  any  periodical  except 
those  in  which  Pound  had  influence,  and  that  now  it 
is  possible  to  print  free  verse  (second,  third,  or  tenth 
rate)  in  almost  any  American  magazine.  Who  is  re 
sponsible  for  the  bad  free  verse  is  a  question  of  no 
importance,  inasmuch  as  its  authors  would  have  writ 
ten  bad  verse  in  any  form;  Pound  has  at  least  the 
right  to  be  judged  by  the  success  or  failure  of  his  own. 
Pound's  vers  libre  is  such  as  is  only  possible  for  a  poet 
who  has  worked  tirelessly  with  rigid  forms  and  dif 
ferent  systems  of  metric.  His  'Canzoni'  are  in  a  way 
aside  from  his  direct  line  of  progress;  they  are  much 
more  nearly  studies  in  mediaeval  appreciation  than  any 
of  his  other  verse,  but  they  are  interesting,  apart  from 
their  merit,  as  showing  the  poet  at  work  with  the  most 
intricate  Provencal  forms — so  intricate  that  the  pat 
tern  cannot  be  exhibited  without  quoting  an  entire 
poem.  (M.  Jean  de  Bosschere,  whose  French  is  trans 
lated  in  the  'Egoist,'  has  already  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Pound  was  the  first  writer  in  English 
to  use  five  Provencal  forms.)  Quotation  will  show, 
however,  the  great  variety  of  rhythm  which  Pound 
manages  to  introduce  into  the  ordinary  iambic  penta 
meter  : 

"Thy  gracious  ways, 

O  lady  of  my  heart,  have 

O'er  all  my  thought  their  golden  glamour  cast; 
As  amber  torch-flames,  where  strange  men-at-arms 
Tread  softly  'neath  the  damask  shield  of  night, 
Rise  from  the  flowing  steel  in  part  reflected, 
So  on  my  mailed  thought  that  with  thee  goeth, 
Though  dark  the  way,  a  golden  glamour  falleth. 


142  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Following  the  publication  of  Ezra  Pound's  first  book 
came  others,  including  the  following  titles : 

"Provenca,"  "The  Spirit  of  Romance,"  "The  Son 
nets  and  Ballads  of  Guido  Cavalcanti,"  "Ripostes," 
"Des  Imagistes,"  "Gaudier-Brzeska,"  "Noh,"  "Lus 
tra,"  and  "Pavannes  and  Divisions." 

Mr.  Pound  was  born  in  Hailey,  Indiana,  October 
31,  1885,  and  was  educated  in  the  University  of  Penn 
sylvania  and  Hamilton  College.  While  Mr.  Pound 
makes  his  home  abroad,  he  is  a  steady  contributor  both 
in  capacity  of  editor  and  writer  for  The  Little  Re 
view,  "a  magazine  of  the  arts  making  no  compromise 
with  the  public's  tastes."  He  makes  his  home  in  Hol 
land  Place  Chambers,  Kensington,  London,  England. 

Benjamin  De  Casseres 

The  New  York  World  Magazine  at  one  time  printed 
an  article  by  Henry  Tyrell  with  the  heading  some 
thing  like  this :  "Poems  of  a  Shadow-Eater — De  Cas 
seres,  Psalmist  of  Night  and  Nietzscheism,  Lives  Un 
known  in  New  York  and  Writes  Like  Poe,  Whitman, 
Baudelaire  and  King  David,  While  Railing  at  the  Me 
tropolis  as  'A  City  Whose  Splendor  Is  in  the  Dazzling 
Glitter  of  All  That  Is  Monstrous  and  Soulless.' '  And 
this  is  an  excellent  approach  to  the  work  of  Benjamin 
De  Casseres.  His  much  commented  upon  "De  Pro- 
fundis"  runs: 

Night !    Night !    Eternal  Night,  whose  black  vapors  have 

filled  all  the  sluice-ways  of 
Time — Night,  pageless  and  void; 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  143 

Night  upgurgling  from  chaos,  upswirl  of  the  noumenal 
seas,  drape  me  and  veil  me  from  the  illusory  light  of 
this  world! 
My  being's  at  nadir, 
I  pass  into  my  solstice, 
I  have  touched  of  ITS  garment,   the  black  thing  IT 

weaves  on  ITS  sentient  looms, 
While  we  crawl  in  ITS  creases  and  guess. 
Sit  I  in  the  night  of  ITS  sleeve, 
Withering  into  eternities, 
Bowed  in  ITS  night,  in  ITS  might! 

Benjamin  de  Casseres  was  born  in  Philadelphia, 
forty  years  ago,  of  Spanish-Hebrew  parents,  through 
whom  he  traces  his  lineal  descent  from  the  i/th  cen 
tury  Jewish  philosopher,  Spinoza.  Not  Spinoza,  how 
ever,  but  Nietzsche  is  his  psychic  godfather,  and,  need 
less  to  say,  Benjamin  de  Casseres  is  a  born  radical. 
He  is  a  master  of  many  languages,  and  a  deep  student 
of  art,  specializing  on  the  archaeological  remains  of 
the  ancient  Aztecs. 

Roy  Helton 

Time  will  decide  whether  or  not  Roy  Helton  will 
share  honors  with  Edgar  Lee  Masters.  Much  of  the 
quality  found  in  the  latter's  poems  is  evidenced  in  Hel 
ton's  book,  "Outcasts  in  Beulah  Land,"  published  in 
the  fall  of  1918.  This  book,  which  is  his  first,  offers 
poems  of  rare  genius,  for  here  is  a  man  who  can  touch 
with  magic  understanding  the  homely  things  of  life. 
He  sees  the  ten-cent  store  and  the  automat  lunch-room 
and  similar  themes  in  terms  which  the  average  poet 
might  shun. 


144  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

To  quote  from  Helton  is  difficult,  but  the  following 
lines  from  "Mazie"  present  a  meagre  example  of  his 
ability : 

Lonely-eyed  Mazie  sat 

In  the  old  Automat, 

Dreaming,  ah,  dreaming  a 

Dream  of  some  golden  day; 

Dreaming,  ah,  dreaming 

Strange  dreams  never  told 

By  the  shy  hidden-hearted 
Dear  ladies  of  old. 

Nobody  found  her. 

Gentle-eyed  Mazie  who 
Wanted  a  hero  too. 

But  at  the  last,  I  saw 
Nature  assert  the  sway 
Of  her  relentless  law: 
Mazie's  shy  star  arose 
In  new-caught  glory: 
Day's  end  and  stars  and  tide, 
Love  for  the  weary-eyed, 
These  the  grave  god  supplied 
To  her  mild  story. 

Eating  his  ham  and  eggs 
Over  a  cup  of  tea, 
Scanning  the  ladies'  legs 
Under  the  tables;  he 
Sidled  across  to  her 
Grimly  and  grimly; 
Sidled  across,  as  though 
He  were  a  pirate,  out 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  145 

Of  Treasure  Island,  who 
Had  a  new  lay  in  mind 
For  wholesale  murder:  grim 
Wasn't  the  name  for  him: 
Growled  out  a  greeting. 

That  was  their  meeting; 
Her  part  all  wonder 
At  gold  band  and  blue. 
His  part?    I  puzzled,  till 
Somehow — God  knows — 
The  hidden  child 
^Rose  from  his  war-beaten 
*Eyes,  and  he  smiled.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XIII 

KATHERINE  LEE  BATES,  HARRIET  MONROE,  JESSIE  RIT- 

TENHOUSE,    SARAH    CLEGHORN,    ALICE    BROWN,    ANNA 

HEMPSTEAD    BRANCH,    JOSEPHINE    PRESTON    PEABODY, 

OLIVE   TILFORD  DARGAN 

Katherine  Lee  Bates 

"As  a  child  in  what  was  then  the  little  seafaring 
village  of  Falmouth,  Mass.,  twenty  miles  from  a  rail 
road,  I  found  myself  reading  poetry  with  joy,"  writes 
Katherine  Lee  Bates,  "and  very  soon,  child-fashion, 
making  verses  of  my  own.  Early  in  my  sophomore 
year  at  Wellesley  College  I  was  surprised  and  de 
lighted  to  have  a  poem  of  mine  accepted  by  The  At 
lantic  Monthly,  and  ever  since  have  been  looking  for 
ward  to  a  period  in  life  when  I  shall  be  free  to  devote 
the  best  of  my  strength  and  the  most  of  my  time  to 
poetry.  That  period  has  never  come,  as  I  have  been 
all  my  years  a  very  busy  teacher,  doing  a  good  deal  of 
incidental  writing,  as  studies  on  special  subjects, — for 
example,  American  Literature  and  the  English  Re 
ligious  Drama, — and  editions"  of  English  Classics. 
But  I  am  still  expecting,  and  shall  continue  to  expect 
until  I  reach  the  Amaranth  Meadows,  a  holiday  all  my 
own  on  Parnassus." 

W.  S.  B.,  writing  in  the  Boston  Transcript,  pays  a 
most  admirable  tribute  to  Miss  Bates: 

146 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  147 

"By  a  strange  paradox  the  most  satisfying  war 
poetry  in  America  has  been  written  by  women.  Jose 
phine  Preston  Peabody's  'Harvest-Moon,'  published 
some  time  ago,  is  one  of  the  most  spiritually  illumi 
nating  volumes  on  the  war;  Miss  Lowell  has  done  bet 
ter  than  any  man,  some  of  her  pieces  being  charged 
with  indignant  wrath  and  the  persuasive  eloquence  of 
patriotism;  Miss  Burr's  'Silver  Trumpet'  is  blown 
through  with  the  ecstatic  celebration  of  the  Great 
Cause,  giving  voice  to  the  common  anguish  of  the 
trampled  nations,  and  to  the  common  sentiments  of 
the  multitudes  in  the  great  democracies  for  the  liberty 
and  peace  of  the  world;  and  Miss  Bates,  in  'The 
Retinue  and  Other  Poems,'  has  touched  with  tender 
ness  and  with  a  fine  idealism  the  spirit  of  the  Allied 
peoples  into  expression  from  'consternation  at  the  hor 
ror  of  war  itself  to  recognition  of  the  supreme  issues 
involved.1 ' 

In  the  "New  Crusade,"  Miss  Bates  writes : 

Life  is  a  trifle ; 
Honor  is  all ; 
Shoulder  the  rifle; 
Answer  the  call. 
"A  nation  of  traders"! 
We'll  show  what  we  are, 
Freedom's  crusaders 
Who  war  against  war. 

Life  is  but  passion, 
Sunshine  on  dew. 
Forward  to  fashion 
The  old  world  anew ! 


148  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"A  nation  of  traders" ! 
We'll  show  what  we  are, 
Freedom's  crusaders 
Who  war  against  war. 

And  in  "New  Roads" : 

Far  road  for  words  that  rush, 
Arrowing  space, 
Swifter  than  meteors  flush 
Star-road  in  race. 

Wireless!    Tireless,  leaping  the  wave! 

Roger  Bacon  laughs  in  his  grave. 

One  road,  o'er-steep  to  climb 
Since  world  began, 
Winged  in  our  wonder-time, 
Sun-road   for  man. 

Air-ship!     Fair  ship,  soaring  the  blue! 

Galilee  had  burned  for  you. 

Dread  road  for  Freedom's  sons, 
Sworn  to  release 
Life  from  the  threat  of  guns, 
Red  road  to  peace. 

New  knights !  true  knights !  gleam  of  God's  blade ! 

Lincoln  leads  in  the  Last  Crusade. 

Katherine  Lee  Bates  was  born  in  Falmouth,  Mass., 
on  August  12,  1859.  Her  works  include:  "College 
Beautiful  and  Other  Poems,"  "Rose  and  Thorn," 
"Sunshine  and  Other  Verses  for  Children,"  "Hermit 
Island,"  "English  Religious  Drama,"  "American  Lit 
erature,"  "Spanish  Highways  and  By-ways,"  "From 


CUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  149 

Gretna  Green  to  Land's  End,"  "The  Story  of  Chaucer's 
Canterbury  Pilgrims  Re-told  for  Children,"  "America 
the  Beautiful  and  Other  Poems,"  "In  Sunny  Spain," 
"The  Retinue  and  Other  Poems." 

Harriet  Monroe 

One  of  the  most  important  factors  in  contemporary 
American  poetry  is  Harriet  Monroe,  for  as  founder 
and  editor  of  Poetry:  A  Magazine  of  Verse,  she  has 
done  much  for  fostering  the  spirit  so  necessary  in 
young  poets,  which  thrives  upon  seeing  their  efforts 
in  print. 

Aside  from  her  editorial  duties  Miss  Monroe  counts 
to  her  credit,  "Valeria  and  Other  Poems,"  "The  Co 
lumbian  Ode,"  "John  Wellborn  Root — a  Memoir," 
"The  Passing  Show,"  and  "You  and  I."  In  1917,  to 
gether  with  Alice  Corbin  Henderson,  Miss  Monroe 
edited  "The  New  Poetry,  An  Anthology,"  one  of  the 
most  valuable  books  of  its  kind. 

In  "Love  Song,"  Miss  Monroe  shows  her  own  abil 
ity  as  a  poet : 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well 
To  give  it  to  thee  like  a  flower, 

So  it  may  pleasure  thee  to  dwell 
Deep  in  its  perfume  but  an  hour. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well 
To  sing  it  note  by  note  away, 

So  to  thy  soul  the  song  may  tell 
The  beauty  of  the  desolate  day. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 


150  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

I  love  my  life  but  not  too  well 
To  cast  it  like  a  xcloak  on  thine, 

Against  the  storms  that  sound  and  swell 
Between  thy  lonely  heart  and  mine. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 

Miss  Monroe  was  born  in  Chicago.  She  was  grad 
uated  from  the  Visitation  Academy,  Georgetown, 
D.  C,  in  1891,  and  invited  by  the  Committee  on  Cere 
monies  of  the  Chicago  Exposition  to  write  the  dedi 
catory  poem  for  its  opening.  Her  "Columbian  Ode" 
was  sung  and  read  at  the  ceremonies  of  dedication 
celebrating  the  4OOth  anniversary  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  October  21,  1892. 

N  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse 

For  the  past  twenty  years  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse  has 
devoted  her  life  to  the  criticism  of  modern  poetry,  to 
the  various  movements  looking  to  the  advancement  of 
poetic  appreciation  in  America.  She  was  the  first  to 
enter  this  field,  and  to  insist  that  in  the  poets  of  the 
nineties,  who  were  at  the  fore  when  she  begun,  we  had 
the  finest  group,  Whitman,  Poe,  and  Emerson  ex 
cluded,  that  America  had  produced. 

As  a  pioneer  in  the  poetry  movement,  Miss  Ritten 
house  published  in  1904  "The  Younger  American 
Poets,"  a  volume  of  criticism  devoted  to  the  work  of 
the  poets  of  *the  nineties,  and,  in  retrospection,  it  is  of 
interest  to  note  that  this  book  had  to  create  its  field, 
as  no  subject  was  at  that  time  so  completely  discredited 
as  poetry.  It  not  only  made  its  field,  but  turned  the 
first  furrow  for  what  has  followed.  It  is  in  use  at 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  151 

the  Sorbonne,  the  University  of  Tokio,  the  college  at 
the  Hague,  and  other  foreign  institutions,  as  well  as  in 
most  of  our  own  colleges. 

Following  its  publication,  Miss  Rittenhouse  came  to 
New  York  and  during  the  next  ten  years  did  most 
of  the  criticism  of  poetry  for  The  New  York  Times 
Review  of  Books,  and  various  other  newspapers  and 
periodicals,  lecturing  in  universities  and  before  clubs 
on  poetry,  and  in  the  office  of  perpetual  Secretary  of 
the  Poetry  Society  of  America,  hewing  the  way  for 
our  own  renaissance. 

While  Miss  Rittenhouse  has  been  so  busily  engaged 
proselyting  for  our  American  poets,  the  poetic  muse 
has  had  little  chance  to  express  itself  in  creative  work, 
but  during  1917  and  1918  Miss  Rittenhouse  wrote 
those  delightful  poems  which  make  up  "The  Door  of 
Dreams." 

Such  stanzas  as  the  following,  for  example,  best 
show  the  quality  of  Miss  Rittenhouse's  work: 

THE  HOUR 

You  loved  me  for  an  hour 

Of  all  your  careless  days 
And  then  you  went  forgetting 

Down  your  old  ways. 

How  could  you  know  that  Time  would  work 

A  magic  deed  for  me 
And  fix  that  single  hour 

For  my  eternity! 

Another  example  for  those  who  admire  simplicity, 
expression  without  effort,  and  yet  perfect  in  form : 


152  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

THE  GHOST 

A  score  of  years  you  had  been  lying 

In  this  spot, 
Yet  I,  to  whom  you  .were  the  dearest, 

Had  seen  it  not. 

And  when  today,  by  time  emboldened, 

I  looked  upon  the  stone, 
'Twas  not  your  ghost  that  stood  beside  me, 

But  my  own. 

While  one  is  apt  to  consider  Miss  Rittenhouse 
merely  in  the  light  of  a  critic,  no  book  such  as  this  is 
designed  to  be  would  be  complete  without  proper  trib 
ute  paid  to  one  who  must  be  valued  for  her  poetry  as 
well  as  her  critiques.  For  "The  Door  of  Dreams," 
small  book  though  it  is,  shows  real  lovers  of  poetry 
just  how  able  are  the  talents  that  Miss  Rittenhouse 
possesses  along  creative  lines.  There  are  no  false  notes 
in  her  writings.  Here  is  construction  that  borders  on 
the  best  principles  of  poetry.  And  not  a  few  of  the 
poems  show  kinship  to  the  writings  of  Sara  Teasdale. 

"Songs  to  One  Passing,"  a  series  of  four  poems, 
offers  the  following  noteworthy  quotation : 

Your  wistful  eyes  that  day  you  left, 

They  haunt  me  all  the  night. 
I  never  saw  in  any  eyes 

So  mystical  a  light. 

I  knew  the  day  you  went  from  me 
That  you  would  come  no  more, 

And  yet  I  said  the  casual  words 
That  I  had  said  before. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  153 

And  only  then  I  had  been  true 

And  held  you  in  my  arms, 
And  shielded  you  a  moment's  space 

From  death's  alarms! 

Sarah  Cleghorn 

"I  was  always  beguiled  with  a  notion  of  writing 
verses,  and  perhaps  unfortunately  never  received  much 
of  the  wholesome  ridicule  from  my  relations  which 
might  have  cured  me  of  trying,"  says  Sarah  Cleghorn. 

Her  own  story  told  in  her  own  way  runs  some 
thing  like  this :  "I  believe  that  when  I  was  growing  up 
(from  1885  to  1895 — weM»  *°  I9°5»  perhaps,  when  I 
was  almost  thirty)  poetry  in  this  country  was  at  as 
low  an  ebb  of  beauty,  originality  and  force  as  ever  it 
was  in  its  life.  My  sunbonnet  sort  of  verses,  describ 
ing  old-timey  people  and  places,  with  as  much  of  the 
charm  such  subjects  always  had  for  me,  as  I  could  get 
into  my  pen,  had  for  several  years  a  fair  sale  in  a  num 
ber  of  well-known  magazines.  And  I  am  afraid  that 
is  proof  of  poetry  being  very  anaemic  in  this  country  at 
that  time.  Mr.  Bliss  Perry,  at  that  time  editor  of  The 
Atlantic,  once  wrote  me  a  most  kind  letter  advising  me 
to  try  to  go  outside  this  old-timey  field.  I  did  go  a 
little  outside  it,  and  managed  to  express  some  of 
my  accumulated  indignation  at  various  social  wrongs. 
Magazines  were  still  muck-raking,  and  I  still  had  a 
fair  sale.  I  had  also  a  sale  of  sorts  for  some  of  the 
ideas  a  little  practice  of  the  art  of  contemplation  had 
given  me.  The  war  then  began,  and,  if  you  remember, 
the  first  feeling  in  this  country  was  revolt  against  the 
idea  of  war.  I  shared  it  to  a  degree  that  hardened 


154  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

into  settled  pacifism,  at  about  the  time  when  the 
thought  of  my  countrymen  began  to  turn  to  prepared 
ness.  Some  of  my  pacifist  verses  were  applauded  and 
reprinted  by  papers  which  a  year  or  so  later  abhorred 
the  very  idea  of  them.  This  of  course  means  that  such 
verses  as  rise  to  my  mind  and  heart  nowadays  could 
not  find  a  hole  anywhere  to  creep  into  print  through, 
were  they  written  with  far  more  wit  and  melody  than 
I  possess. 

"But  meantime,  from  about  the  time  when  I  ceased 
to  write  sunbonnet  verses,  the  sky  of  poetry  began  to 
be  lighted  with  real  stars.  The  authentic  fire  was  burn 
ing  again.  John  Masefield  had  begun  to  write  the 
great  poetry  that  will  ennoble  our  times  forever. 
Those  of  us  who  had  tended  our  little  sparks  of 
lighted  straw  read  his  'Everlasting  Mercy,  Dauber,  and 
Widow,'  and  realized  that  he  is  a  poet  of  the  same 
immortal  splendor  as  Milton — greater  than  Browning 
and  immeasurably  greater  than  any  other  poet  now 
alive  who  writes  in  English.  His  sombre  and  pene 
trating  thought  in  the  'Sonnets'  is  like  the  deep  thought 
of  Meredith;  his  descriptions  of  the  sea  can  only  be 
compared  with  the  'Ancient  Mariner' ;  and  his  burning 
feeling  for  human  values,  his  extreme  tenderness  and 
his  religious  intensity  exceed  everything  I  ever  read 
in  any  poet  except  'Piers  Plowman.'  No  one  writing 
poetry  in  English  now  sustains  thought  or  feeling  in 
any  way  comparable  to  him. 

"Of  course  this  is  a  personal  opinion  merely,  and 
that  of  a  mere  lover  of  poetry  whose  reputation  as  a 
judge  of  it  has  yet  to  be  made.  I  find  few  indeed  who 
agree  with  me. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  155 

"But  when  I  can  forget  Masefield's  (as  I  think) 
overpowering  greatness,  I  find  a  large  body  of  other 
poetry  which  seems  to  me  immeasurably  in  advance  of 
what  used  to  be  written  fifteen  or  twenty-five  years 
ago.  First  of  all  poets  in  this  country,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  is  Robert  Frost.  I  don't  think  it  is  altogether  be 
cause  I  am  a  New  Englander  that  I  find  his  Puritan 
strength  and  restrained  fire  so  splendid.  The  first  time 
I  saw  his  poetry  practically  finished  any  idea  I  might 
have  had  that  I  could  write  verses  worth  reading.  His 
masterpiece — 'The  Death  of  the  Hired  Man/  'The 
Self  Seeker/  the  prize  poem  called  'Snow/  and  half 
a  dozen  others  just  barely  less  powerful  and  beautiful, 
give  me  more  delight  than  anything  else  of  American 
poets  I  ever  read.  Nothing  I've  ever  read  (or  heard 
the  author  read)  by  Vachel  Lindsay  seems  to  me  so 
fine  as  his  great  poem,  'General  William  Booth  Enters 
Into  Heaven.'  Of  all  the  numbers  of  Harriet  Mon 
roe's  magazine  Poetry  which  I  have  seen,  the  one  con 
taining  that  poem  seems  to  me  the  best  number  by  far. 
Of  course,  "The  Congo'  and  'The  Chinese  Nightingale* 
are  wonderful,  conceived  in  a  burst  of  genius : — I  don't 
see  how  they  can  ever  be  forgotten,— but  I  feel  that 
they  are  diffuse.  Lincoln  Colcord  wrote  one  or  two 
great  poems  which  I  have  seen  and  which  reverberate 
in  my  mind.  But  I  think  I  should  place  next  to  Mr. 
Frost,  in  my  own  mind,  Edgar  Lee  Masters.  Some  of 
the  epitaphs  in  the  'Spoon  River  Anthology/  I  think 
memorably  beautiful,  as  beautiful  as  the  conception  of 
the  whole  is  bold  and  bizarre. 

"Well,  there  it  is,  perhaps;  the  notion  of  modern 


156  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

American  poetry  which  I  have  is  that  it  is  splendidly 
bold,  individual  and  inquisitive.  It  recognizes  no 
'field'  for  poetry.  'The  field  is  the  world.'  I  tried  to 
sum  it  up  in  a  piece  of  verse  some  years  ago,  which  I 
enclose. 

"Its  influence  and  future.  I  feel  rather  in  a  re 
ceptive  mood  as  regards  those  questions.  I  hope  it 
will  have  an  influence,  in  time,  something  like  the  in 
fluence  of  Jane  Addams — gentle,  fearless,  immeasur 
ably  open  to  ideas,  humane  to  the  inmost  core,  full  of 
the  spirit  of  that  saying  of  Froude's,  'But  the  heart 
must  often  correct  the  follies  of  the  head.' 

"Perhaps  it  will  seem  a  whimsical  notion  if  I  say 
that  it  has  a  great  field  in  some  day  trying  to  interpret 
animal  psychology — and  in  so  doing,  gentling  the 
world  in  its  rawest,  most  brutal  spot. 

"And  I  have  a  dream  of  it,  too,  so  painting  the 
future  co-operative  earth  that  they  help  to  bring  it  to 
pass. 

"I  love  free  verse  no  better  than  rhymed,  but  I  think 
it  is  more  candid." 

Miss  Cleghorn  is  a  descendant  of  Scotch  and  New 
England  parents.  She  has  lived  almost  all  of  her  life 
in  the  village  of  Manchester,  Vermont,  which  her  an 
cestors  helped  to  settle.  She  has  travelled  in  Italy, 
England,  and  Scotland.  She  studied  at  Radcliffe  in 
1895-06,  and  her  verses  have  been  published  in  a  small 
book  called  "Portraits  and  Protests." 

In  a  study  of  our  American  poets  it  is  of  interest  to 
note  Miss  Cleghorn's  lines  from  "My  Muse  Among 
the  Young  Poets": 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  157 

I  said  to  my  faded  old  Muse, 

"What  means  this  hectic  color  in  your  cheek  ? 

Why  do  you  wear  that  Liberty  cap? 

And  what  are  you  looking  down  the  road  to  §ee?" 

My  Muse  did  not  answer. 

It  seemed  that  she  was  not  listening. 

There  was  a  rout  of  young  poets  coming,  singing  and 

shouting  up  the  road. 
She  called  out  to  them, 
"O  let  me  hear  you  with  a  hundred  ears ! 
Throw  off  that  old  corset  of  rhyme! 
Toss  to  the  winds  that  old  delicate  finicking  vocabulary !" 
"What,  what,  my  Muse? — what  are  you  saying?" 
"Take  the  whole  brawny  and  beautiful  English  language, 
And  all  its  irregular  colors  and  harmonies 
To  paint  nude  the  meanings  of  our  time. 
Paint  imbecile  war,  embruted  labor, — 
The  confused  glorious  passion  for  togetherness, — 
Art  still-born  in  the  purlieus  of  poverty, 
And  art  triumphant,  militant  and  fearless ; — 
Paint  the  whole  rape  of  manhood  by  wealth  the  lecher; 
Paint  the  escape  and  defiance  of  manhood  to  wealth! 
Paint  naked  our  crimes  against  animals, 
And  our  sweating  fight  for  the  hindmost." 
"Hush,  Muse,  back  to  the  desk,  and  write  salable  verses 

on  autumn  winds  and  Italian  gardens." 
Neither  then  did  she  hear  me :  but  she  went  on, 
"Let  who  will,  envy  and  long 
For  the  unborn  poets  of  the  Commonwealth, 
With  their  far  more  lucid  beauty  and  clearer  fire. 
Dearer  to  me  are  you,  my  own  poets, 
Shouting  freedom  and  fury! 
My  heart  would  burst 
If  I  should  ever  rejoice  more  than  now  I  rejoice  in  you." 


158  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"My  Muse,  how  comely  you  look,  and  how  youthful,  all 

of  a  sudden !" 
"Thank  God  that  I  ever  was  born !" 


Alice  Brown 

Poems,  plays  and  stories,  all  of  distinctive  merit, 
have  come  from  Alice  Brown.  Born  at  Hampton 
Falls,  New  Hampshire,  December  5,  1857,  and  grad 
uated  from  the  Robinson  Seminary  at  Exeter,  N.  H., 
in  1876,  Miss  Brown  was  not  long  in  making  her 
genius  felt  not  only  in  New  England  but  throughout 
the  entire  country.  With  simple  words  she  sets  down 
such  gems  of  verse  as  "Revelation" : 

Down  in  the  meadow,  sprent  with  dew, 

I  saw  the  Very  God 
Look  from  a  flower's  limpid  blue, 

Child  of  a  starveling  sod. 

As  for  the  descriptive  poetry  of  Miss  Brown,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  surpass  these  lines  from  "Morn 
ing  in  Camp" : 

Above  spice-budded  tops  of  fringing  firs, 
The  shimmering  birches,  delicate  ministers 
To  eye's  delight,  and  o'er  the  deepening  rose 
Of  the  still  lake,  a  soundless  shade  she  goes. 
What  shall  withstand  her  ?    Not  the  mountain  wall 
Where  the  first  potencies  of  dawning  fall, 
Touching  and  moulding  till  awakes  a  flower, 
A  jewelled  heart  of  light,  a  throne  of  power. 
Not  all  the  barriers  of  rock  and  stream ; 
For  who  hath  caught  the  swift,  evanished  gleam 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  159 

Of  Beauty's  mantle  hath  the  charmed  eye 
Fated  to  follow  wheresoe'er  she  fly. 
O  happy  soul !  led  only  by  the  voice 
That  bids  her  turn  to  some  more  wondrous  choice ! 
Upon  the  herby  field  she  sets  her  foot ; 
Staying,  she  listens  there  to  creeping  root; 
Blesses  the  opening  bud,  and  smells  the  mould, 
Sinks  in  a  fern-bed  where  faint  coils,  unrolled, 
Etch  on  the  air  a  curving  tracery 
None  but  the  morning's  postulant  may  see. 
She  steals  great  gospels  from  a  sphere  of  dew, 
That  little  globe  where  ancient  lore  lies  new ; 
And  while  her  tenderest  fibres  wake  and  stir, 
The  realm  o'er  which  she  reigns  reconquers  her. 
Prostrate  she  falls  in  worship  high  and  lone; 
She  swoons  with  rapture  by  the  altar-stone. 
God  and  the  world, — they  are  the  dual  Great, 
And  through  her  dust  are  they  communicate. 

Miss  Brown  makes  her  home  in  Boston.  Her  works 
include  the  following  titles : 

"Fools  of  Nature,"  "Meadow-Grass,"  "By  Oak  and 
Thorn,"  "Life  of  Mercy  Otis  Warren,"  "The  Road  to 
Castaly,"  "The  Day  of  His  Youth,"  "Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,"  "Tiverton  Tales,"  "King's  End,"  "Mar 
garet  Warrener,"  "The  Mannerings,"  "High  Noon," 
"Paradise,"  "The  County  Road,"  "The  Court  of 
Love,"  "Rose  MacLeod,"  "The  Story  of  Thyrza," 
"Country  Neighbors,"  "John  Winterbourne's  Family," 
"The  One-Footed  Fairy,"  "The  Secret  of  the  Clan," 
"Vanishing  Points,"  "Robin  Hood's  Barn,"  "My  Love 
and  I,"  "Children  of  Earth,"  "The  Prisoner,"  and 
"Bromley  Neighborhood." 


160  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 


Anna  Hempstead  Branch  was  awarded  the  first  of 
The  Century  prizes  to  be  given  college  graduates  in  a 
best  poem  contest.  The  title  of  this  prize-winning 
poem  was  "The  Road  'Twixt  Heaven  and  Hell,"  which 
gave  Miss  Branch  a  place  earned  by  merit  among 
American  poets. 

In  "The  Masque  of  Poets,"  edited  by  Edward  J. 
O'Brien,  Miss  Branch's  contribution  was  "The  Name," 
which  concludes  with  these  stirring  lines : 

Love,  by  this  Name  I  sing,  and  breathe 

A  fresh,  mysterious  air. 
By  this  I  innocently  wreathe 

New  garlands  for  my  hair. 

By  this  Name  I  am  born  anew 
More  beautiful,  more  bright. 

More  roseate  than  angelic  dew, 
Apparelled  in  delight. 

I'll  sing  and  stitch  and  make  the  bread 

In  the  wonder  of  my  Name, 
And  sun  the  linen  for  the  bed 

And  tend  the  fireside  flame. 

By  this  Name  do  I  answer  yes — 

Word  beautiful  and  true. 
By  this  I'll  sew  the  bridal  dress 

I  shall  put  on  for  you. 

Anna  Hempstead  Branch  was  born  at  New  London, 
Connecticut,  and  is  a  graduate  of  Adelphi  Academy  of 
Brooklyn,  Smith  College  and  the  American  Academy 
of  Dramatic  Art. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  161 

Miss  Branch's  works  include  "The  Heart  of  the 
Road,"  "The  Shoes  That  Danced,"  "Nimrod  and 
Other  Poems,"  and  "Rose  of  the  Wind,"  a  play  pro 
duced  in  Carnegie  Lyceum  in  1907. 

Josephine  Preston  Peabody 

"The  Piper"  is  another  prize-winning  piece  of  writ 
ing,  for  with  this  play  Josephine  Preston  Peabody  ob 
tained  the  Stratford-on-Avon  prize  in  1910.  It  was 
produced  in  England  and  a  year  later  in  America. 

Among  the  shorter  poems  of  this  poet  is  "A  Song 
of  Solomon,"  selected  by  Miss  Monroe  for  "The  New 
Poetry,  An  Anthology." 

King  Solomon  was  the  wisest  man 

Of  all  that  have  been  kings. 
He  built  an  House  unto  the  Lord ; 

And  he  sang  of  creeping  things. 

Of  creeping  things,  of  things  that  fly 

Or  swim  within  the  seas; 
Of  the  little  weed  along  the  wall, 

And  of  the  cedar-trees. 

And  happier  he,  without  mistake, 

Than  all  men  since  alive. 
God's  House  he  built ;  and  he  did  make 

A  thousand  songs  and  five. 

Josephine  Preston  Peabody  was  born  in  New  York. 
She  was  married  to  Lionel  Simeon  Marks  in  June, 
1906.  Her  home  is  at  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Her  writings  include   "Old   Greek   Folk-Stories," 


1 62  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"The  Wayfarers,"  "Fortune  and  Men's  Eyes,"  "Mar 
lowe,"  "The  Singing  Leaves,"  "Pan,  a  Choric  Idyl," 
"The  Wings,"  "The  Book  of  the  Little  Past,"  "The 
Piper,"  "The  Singing  Man,"  "The  Wolf  of  Gubbio," 
and  "Harvest  Moon." 

Olive  Tilford  Dargan 

Olive  Tilford  Dargan  was  born  in  Gray  son  County, 
Kentucky.  She  taught  school  in  Arkansas,  Mexico, 
Texas  and  Canada  until  her  marriage  to  Pegram  Dar 
gan. 

In  1916  she  was  awarded  the  $500  prize  by  the 
Southern  Society  of  New  York  for  the  best  book  by  a 
Southern  writer. 

Contributor  to  numerous  magazines,  Mrs.  Dargan 
has  won  a  large  following.  "Fatherland"  was  her 
share  to  Edward  J.  O'Brien's  "The  Masque  of  Poets." 

Come  fingered  as  a  friend,  O  Death ! 
Unfrock  me,  flesh  and  bone ; 
These  frills  of  smile  and  moan, 
These  laces,  traces,  all  unpin; 
These  veins  that  net  me  in, 
This  ever  lassoing  breath, 
Remove  from  me, 
If  here  is  aught  to  free! 

To  know  these  hills  nor  wait  for  feet ! 

O  Earth,  to  be  thy  child  at  last ! 
Thy  roads  all  mine,  and  no  white  gate 

Inevitably  fast! 

To  enter  where  thy  banquets  are 
When  storms  are  called  to  feast ; 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  163 

And  find  thy  hidden  pantry  stair 
When  Spring  with  thee  would  guest; 

Into  thine  attic  windows  step 
From  humbled  Himalays, 

And  round  thy  starry  cornice  creep 
Waylaying  deities; 

Though  for  my  hand 

Space  hold  out  spheres  like  roses,  and 

Like  country  lanes  her  orbits  blow — 

My  Earth,  I  know, 

If  thou  be  green  and  blossom  still, 

That  I  must  downward  go; 

Leave   stars  to  keep 

House  as  they  will; 

The  winds  to  walk  or  turn  and  sleep, 

Seas  to  spare  or  kill ; 

Behind  my  back  shall  sunsets  burn 

Bereft  of  my  concern; 

Each  wonder  passed 

Shall  feed  my  haste, 

Till  I  have  paused,  as  now, 

Beneath  a  bending  orchard  bough, — 

An  April  apple-bough, 

Where  southern  waters  creep. 

Mrs.  Dargan  is  the  author  of  "Semiramis  and  Other 
Plays,"  "Lords  and  Lovers,"  "The  Mortal  Gods  and 
Other  Dramas,"  and  "The  Cycle's  Rim." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY,  EDGAR  GUEST,  BERTON  BRALEY, 

THOMAS  A.  DALY,  ANTHONY  EUWER,  CHARLES  HANSON 

TOWNE,    JOHN    CURTIS    UNDERWOOD,    ELLA    WHEELER 

WILCOX,  ARTHUR  GUITERMAN 

Christopher  Morley 

Perhaps  you  have  seen  this  graceful  and  unusual 
little  poem.  It  has  been  reprinted  in  numerous  news 
papers  and  magazines  throughout  the  country : 

A  CHARM 

O  wood,  burn  bright ;  O  flame,  be  quick ; 
O  smoke,  draw  cleanly  up  the  flue — 
My  lady  chose  your  every  brick 
And  sets  her  dearest  hopes  on  you! 

Logs  cannot  burn,  nor  tea  be  sweet, 
Nor  white  bread  turn  to  crispy  toast, 
Until  your  charm  be  made  complete 
By  love,  to  lay  the  sooty  ghost. 

And  then,  dear  books,  dear  waiting  chairs, 
Dear  china  and  mahogany, 
Draw  close,  for  on  the  happy  stairs 
My  brown-eyed  girl  comes  down  for  tea ! 
164 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  165 

It  is  dedicated  "for  our  new  fireplace,  to  stop  its 
smoking,"  and  was  one  of  a  popular  volume  of  poems 
which  made  up  "Songs  for  a  Little  House,"  by  Chris 
topher  Morley,  who  before  this  publication  had  gained 
something  of  a  name  for  himself  with  his  book-read 
ing-propaganda  novelette,  "Parnassus  on  Wheels." 

In  "Songs  for  a  Little  House"  some  critics  found 
Morley  inclined  toward  the  sentimental,  but  generally 
it  was  accorded  a  warm  welcome  as  a  volume  of  merit 
and  promise  of  finer  things  to  come. 

Concerning  Christopher  Morley,  the  following  sta 
tistics,  statistical  and  otherwise,  are  set  down  by  Mor 
ley  himself : 

"Born  May  5,  1890,  at  Haverford,  Pa.  My  father 
is  a  mathematician  and  a  poet,  my  mother  is  a  musi 
cian  and  a  fine  cook  and  a  poet,  so  you  see  I  was  handi 
capped  by  intellectual  society  and  good  nourishment. 
I  have  always  yearned  to  be  a  poet,  but  will  never  get 
anywhere  because  I  fall  into  the  happy  slough  of 
mediocrity.  I  can't  write  either  badly  enough  or  well 
enough  to  dull  the  abhorred  shears.  My  chief  trouble 
is  that  I  am  too  well  fed.  Great  literature  proceeds 
from  an  empty  stomach. 

"Most  of  my  boyhood  was  spent  in  miscellaneous 
deviltry  in  Baltimore,  ringing  doorbells  and  putting 
out  purses  on  the  pavement  with  strings  to  them. 
Most  of  the  money  I  see  still  has  a  string  tied  to  it,  and 
some  one  else  has  hold  of  the  string.  I  never  thought 
of  cudgelling  the  muse  until  I  went  to  college  at  Hav 
erford,  which  is  just  a  mile  from  Bryn  Mawr.  Enough 
said.  The  nymphs  of  Bryn  Mawr  are  responsible  for 
more  juvenile  verse  in  eastern  Pennsylvania  than  the 


166  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

statisticians  dream.  When  I  was  eighteen  I  had  an 
idea  that  if  I  could  only  write  a  poem  a  day  for  twenty 
years,  the  world  would  be  made  safe  for  Helicon. 

"I  graduated  from  Haverford  in  1910,  and  a  benev 
olent  posse  of  college  presidents  in  Maryland  sent  me 
to  New  College,  Oxford,  as  a  Rhodes  Scholar. 

"At  Oxford  I  learned  to  drink  shandygaff. 

"I  came  home  from  England  in  1913  and  started 
work  for  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company.  At  Garden 
City  I  learned  to  read  Conrad  and  McFee. 

"In  1917  I  joined  the  editorial  staff  of  The  Ladies' 
Home  Journal,  and  spent  a  year  in  studying  the  lit 
erary  technique  of  Grace  S.  Richmond.  My  most 
exciting  adventures  during  this  period  were  reading  a 
few  million  jokes  sent  in  by  readers  of  The  L.  H.  J. 
for  the  famous  'That  Reminds  Me'  page. 

"In  1918  Mr.  Bok  decided  that  I  would  not  make  a 
good  vestryman  for  The  L.  H.  J.,  and  I  became  a  mill 
stone  on  the  neck  of  The  Philadelphia  Evening  Public 
Ledger. 

"I  wrote  a  poem  in  1918,  and  I  intend  to  write  one 
in  1919. 

"I  was  married  in  1914,  and  live  at  Wyncote,  Pa., 
ten  miles  from  Philadelphia  on  the  Cinder  and  Blood 
shot.  Commutation,  $6.88  per  month.  Plumbers'  bills, 
ditto  per  week. 

"I  belong  to  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  but  I  am  reticent 
about  it. 

"I  belong  to  the  Grolier  Club  and  Coffee  House  in 
New  York,  and  the  Franklin  Inn  in  Philadelphia. 

"I  am  proud  of  having  founded  the  'small  fry'  that 
used  to  meet  at  Browne's  Chop  House,  and  hope  it  will 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  167 

continue  to  do  so  as  long  as  there  are  small  fry  in  the 
journalistic  business. 

"Unlike  Ben  Franklin,  I  love  to  halve  my  income  by 
doubling  my  desires. 

"My  favorite  amusement  is  hanging  about  second 
hand  bookstores.  My  ambition  is  to  be  a  college  pro 
fessor  with  a  wedge-shaped  honey-colored  Assyrian 
beard,  and  to  write  one  good  novel  and  one  good  play, 
and  the  first  stanza  of  a  good  poem." 

Edgar  Guest 

There  is  nothing  pretentious  about  the  writings  of 
Edgar  Guest,  but  he  handles  so  ably  themes  of  every 
day  that  he  has  been  rightly  called  "the  poet  of  the 
people." 

There  are  smiles  and  tears  in  his  poems  set  down  in 
the  terms  that  are  easiest  understood.  They  are  gen 
uine  and  portray  the  poet's  faith  in  human  nature. 

Guest  is  a  newspaper  poet.  R.  Marshall,  an  old- 
time  newspaper  man  of  Detroit,  writes  of  him  as  fol 
lows  : 

"One  bleak  winter  morning  back  in  1894,  a  thirteen- 
year-old  boy  answered  a  'liner'  advertisement  by  walk 
ing  into  Doty  Brothers'  drug  store,  which  was  at  the 
corner  of  Sibley  and  Clifford  streets  in  Detroit,  and 
convinced  one  of  the  Dotys  that  he  could  shine  soda- 
water  glasses  to  such  a  polished  state  of  brilliance  that 
the  customers  would  have  to  wear  yellow  goggles,  thus 
making  one  department  of  the  business  feed  another 
department,  a  principle  recognized  by  all  merchant 
princes.  This  lad  was  Edgar  A.  Guest. 


168  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"Every  night  after  school  Eddie  attacked  that  soda 
fountain  with  such  fervor  that  by  supper  time  it  shone 
like  a  fire-engine.  It  was  only  a  question  of  time  when 
such  fine  enthusiasm  would  attract  attention  outside  of 
the  business  organization  that  profited  by  it.  So  when 
Dave  Robbins,  who  ran  a  rival  store  down  on  Third 
Avenue,  offered  Eddie  a  position  that  carried  a  more 
princely  hire,  Eddie  resigned  his  old  job  and  waited 
upon  trade  at  the  Robbins  store. 

"One  of  the  customers  of  the  Robbins  fountain  was 
a  bookkeeper  in  the  employ  of  The  Detroit  Free  Press. 
To  him  the  youthful  Guest  confided  his  ambition  to 
be  a  reporter,  and  so,  in  the  summer  of  1895,  when 
they  needed  a  boy  in  the  business  department  of  the 
paper,  the  bookkeeper  pulled  the  wires  and  Eddie  got 
the  job. 

"William  E.  Quinby,  lately  returned  to  the  edi 
torial  chair  from  his  ministerial  duties  at  The  Hague, 
took  an  interest  in  the  new  office  boy,  and  when  a 
vacancy  occurred  on  'the  local  staff/  Eddie  was  made 
a  reporter  and  started  his  career  behind  the  scenes  of 
the  city's  life.  In  course  of  time  he  was  transferred 
temporarily  to  the  exchange  desk — and  there's  another 
joy  that  most  of  us  in  the  workaday  world  shall  never 
know  and  can  never  appreciate. 

"Eddie  read  exchanges  and  clipped  and  pasted  many 
a  printed  column  to  be  grabbed  frantically  by  the  pro 
fane  foreman  of  the  composing  room  to  plug  a  hole 
on  page  six  when  the  town's  foremost  haberdasher 
fell  down  in  his  laudable  intention  to  come  through 
with  double-column  advertising  copy  instead  of  single. 

"And  it  was  in  this  stuffy,  littered  little  room  one 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  169 

day  that  a  poetry  microbe  wriggled  out  from  between 
one  of  Marse  Henry  Watterson's  virile  editorials  and 
bit  Eddie  Guest  good  and  proper.  Eddie  started  to 
write  verse  and  more  verse,  and  those  that  got  into 
print  were  read  and  were  then  cut  out  and  preserved 
in  family  albums. 

"At  odd  times,  between  fire  alarms,  Eddie  wrote 
verse  and  shortly  started  publishing  it  once  a  week  in 
a  column  under  the  heading  'Chaff.'  When  he  felt  epi- 
grammatical  he  wrote  paragraphs — those  bits  of  wit, 
humor,  and  pathos  that  the  editor  runs  after  his  edi 
torials,  as  a  sort  of  goal  toward  which  the  reader  will 
plod  through  the  dreary  waste  of  wisdom-laden  words. 
These  he  headed  'Homely  and  Home  Made.'  A  little 
later,  his  column  of  verse  became  a  regular  weekly 
feature,  appearing  every  Monday  morning  under  the 
heading  'Blue  Monday  Chat.' 

"So  the  malady  that  started  a  year  or  two  before 
waxed  to  a  fever,  and  the  time  came  when  they  took 
Eddie  off  the  crime  beat  and  ordered  him  to  be  funny 
for  a  column  every  day.  He  collaborated  with  the 
various  artists  on  the  paper  and  wrote  most  of  the 
feature  stuff  for  the  Sunday  edition.  Those  readers 
who  found  amusement  in  the  writings  of  A.  N.  Bene 
dict,  G.  A.  Edwards,  Mr.  Mutt  (long  before  Bud 
Fisher  created  him)  and  Charlie  the  Barber  would 
probably  have  laughed  just  as  loud,  or  maybe  louder, 
had  they  known  that  Eddie  Guest  was  writing  it  all. 
And  maybe  they'd  have  laughed  still  louder  had  they 
known  that  he  was  dubbed  A.  N.  Benedict  at  that  time 
because  that's  what  he  was.  He  married  Miss  Nellie 
Corssman  in  1906. 


170  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

"From  that  time  to  this,  Eddie  Guest  has  written 
daily  for  The  Free  Press  a  column  of  verse  and  anec 
dotes  and  epigrams  and  what-not  published  under  the 
heading  'Breakfast  Table  Chat.' " 

Although  born  in  Birmingham,  England,  on  August 
20,  1 88 1,  Guest  merits  the  right  of  a  place  in  this 
volume  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  his  poems  are  strictly 
American.  He  came  to  America,  more  specifically  to 
Detroit,  Michigan,  with  his  parents  in  1891,  and  in 
1895  joined  the  staff  of  The  Detroit  Free  Press.  It 
was  ten  years  later  that  he  began  to  write  an  original 
column  for  this  paper,  and,  as  he  expresses  it,  "I  have 
been  at  it  ever  since."  He  has  published  three  books 
of  verse,  "Home  Rhymes,"  "Just  Glad  Things,"  and 
"Breakfast  Table  Chat,"  and  in  1916  the  Reilly  & 
Britton  Company  introduced  him  to  a  larger  public, 
with  "A  Heap  o'  Livin',"  followed  with  "Just  Folks," 
and  in  March,  1918,  "Over  Here,"  a  collection  of  war 
time  rhymes. 

"American  poets,"  says  Mr.  Guest,  "have  inspired 
millions  of  Americans  with  love  for  the  ideals  of  de 
mocracy,  and  are  to-day  crystallizing  in  the  beauty  of 
their  songs  the  splendor  of  unselfish,  patriotic  service. 
Its  future  is  rich  with  opportunity.  Many  fine  minds 
are  turning  to  poetry  as  the  medium  which  best  ex 
presses  their  thoughts,  and  the  great  mass  of  Ameri 
can  readers  is  finding  in  American  poetry  the  mirror 
of  themselves." 

Guest  is  particularly  well  known  for  his  poems  about 
children,  although  his  poem  "Home"  is  perhaps  the 
best  loved 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY      171 

HOME 

It  takes  a  heap  o'  livin'  in  a  house  t'  make  it  home, 

A  heap  o'  sun  an'  shadder,  an'  ye  sometimes  have  t'  roam 

Afore  ye  really  'predate  the  things  ye  lef  behind, 

An'  hunger  for  'em  somehow,  with  'em  allus  on  yer  mind. 

It  don't  make  any  differunce  how  rich  ye  get  t'  be, 

How  much  yer  chairs  an'  tables  cost,  how  great  yer 

luxury ; 

It  ain't  home  t'  ye,  though  it  be  the  palace  of  a  king, 
Until  somehow  yer  soul  is  sort  o'  wrapped  round  every 
thing. 

Home  ain't  a  place  that  gold  can  buy  or  get  up  in  a 

minute ; 

Afore  it's  home  there's  got  t'  be  a  heap  o'  livin'  in  it ; 
Within  the   walls   there's  got  t'  be   some  babies  born, 

and  then 
Right  there  ye've  got  t'  bring  'em  up  t'  women  good, 

an'  men ; 

And  gradjerly,  as  time  goes  on,  ye  find  ye  wouldn't  part 
With  anything  they  ever  used — they've  grown  into  yer 

heart : 
The  old  high  chairs,  the  playthings,  too,  the  little  shoes 

they  wore 
Ye  hoard;  an'  if  ye  could  ye'd  keep  the  thumb-marks 

on  the  door. 

Ye've  got  t'  weep  t'  make  it  home,  ye've  got  t'  sit  an'  sigh 
An'  watch  beside  a  loved  one's  bed,  an'  know  that  Death 

is  nigh; 

An'  in  the  stillness  o'  the  night  t'  see  Death's  angel  come, 
An'  close  the  eyes  o'  her  that  smiled,  an'  leave  her  sweet 

voice  dumb. 
Fer  these  are  scenes  that  grip  the  heart,  an'  when  yer 

tears  are  dried, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Ye  find  the  home  is  dearer  than  it  was,  an*  sanctified ; 
An'  tuggin'  at  yer  always  are  the  pleasant  memories 
O'  her  that  was  an'  is  no  more — ye  can't  escape  from 
these. 

Ye've  got  t'  sing  an'  dance  fer  years,  ye've  got  t'  romp 

an'  play, 

An'  learn  t'  love  the  things  ye  have  by  usin'  'em  each  day ; 
Even  the  roses  'round  the  porch  must  blossom  year  by 

year 

Afore  they  'come  a  part  o'  ye,  suggestin'  some  one  dear 
Who  used  t'  love  'em  long  ago,  an'  trained  'em  jes'  t'  run 
The  way  they  do,  so's  they  would  get  the  early  mornin' 

sun; 
Ye've  got  t'  love  each  brick  an'  stone  from  cellar  up 

t'  dome; 
It  takes  a  heap  o'  livin'  in  a  house  t'  make  it  home. 

Berton  Braley 

Of  various  collected  volumes  of  verse  of  Berton 
Braley's,  none  offers  a  more  interesting  study  of  this 
popular  poet  than  "A  Banjo  at  Armageddon."  This 
book  is  divided  into  five  parts,  subtitled  "In  the  'Big 
Show,'  "  "Open  Air  Ballads,"  "City  Ballads,"  "Farce 
and  Frivol,"  and  "Ballads  of  the  Workaday  Adven 
tures." 

His  concluding  paragraph  in  "America  Speaks" 
demonstrates  his  ability  as  interpreter  of  American 
patriotism : 

I  know  my  sons ;  the  grand  old  strain  is  in  them, 
And  they  will  never  fail  me  in  my  need, 

But  talk  of  fame  and  glory  will  not  win  them 
For  "no  heroics"  is  their  quiet  creed ; 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  173 

They'll  jest  at  service  in  a  cynic  manner 
And  swear  that  guns  would  make  them  flee  pell-mell, 

And  yet  I  know  they'd  bear  my  starry  banner 
If  need  be,  through  the  very  fires  of  hell ! 

Berton  Braley  was  born  in  Madison,  Wisconsin, 
January  29,  1892.  He  was  graduated  from  the  Uni 
versity  of  Wisconsin  in  1905  and  was  married  to 
Marion  A.  Rubincam  of  Philadelphia  in  1915.  As 
journalist  and  poet  he  has  contributed  about  five  thou 
sand  poems  and  three  hundred  short  stories  to  nu 
merous  magazines  and  newspapers  throughout  this 
country. 

Included  in  his  works  are  "Sonnets  of  a  Freshman," 
"Oracle  on  Smoke,"  "Sonnets  of  a  Suffragette," 
"Songs  of  a  Workaday  World,"  "Things  as  They 
Are,"  and  "A  Banjo  at  Armageddon." 

Thomas  A.  Daly 

Thomas  Augustine  Daly — T.  A.  Daly,  Litt.  D.,  poet, 
humorist,  lecturer,  newspaper  writer — all  are  one  and 
the  same. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning  and  according  to  Harry 
Dunbar,  Thomas  Daly  and  his  "Pegasus"  made  their 
dual  debut  as  follows:  "A  dozen  years  ago  there  ap 
peared  in  the  East  a  new  light.  Since  then  millions 
of  readers  of  newspapers  and  magazines  have  come 
to  know  'Carlotta,'  'Giuseppe,'  and  'Tony/  not  as  dumb 
and  soulless  'dagoes,'  but  as  honest,  industrious,  lov 
able,  but  new-made  Americans;  and  myriads  of  de 
lighted  readers  have  welcomed,  too,  the  clever  Irish 
poems  from  the  pen  of  America's  newest  dialectician, 


174  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Thomas  Augustine  Daly,  while  hundreds  of  audiences 
have  heard  Mr.  Daly  in  author's  recitals  and  humorous 
addresses. 

"As  the  spokesman  for  these  Americans  of  the  first 
generation,  as  their  interpreter  and  friend,  we  honor 
the  genius  of  a  countryman,  and  thus  we  honor  our 
selves.  Mr.  Daly's  poems  are  among  the  brightest 
gems  of  recent  literature,  and  it  is  because  of  them 
that  Fordham  University  conferred  upon  the  poet  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Letters.  It  would  not  surprise  his 
friends  if  a  similar  honor  were  to  come  to  him  from 
abroad.  An  American  literary  man  traveling  in  Eng 
land  recently  wrote :  'I  must  tell  you  that  while  I  was 
stopping  in  Oxford  the  other  day  I  found  a  warm  ad 
mirer  of  T.  A.  Daly  among  the  dons  of  the  University, 
a  Mr.  Osborne  by  name,  who  has  developed  quite  a 
Daly  cult  among  the  undergraduates,  who  are  read 
ing  him  like  everybody  reads  Dowson  at  Harvard.' 

"As  a  humorist  Mr.  Daly  has  won  unqualified  dis 
tinction,  having  been  made  president  of  the  American 
Press  Humorists'  Association,  and  recognized  by  prac 
tically  every  metropolitan  newspaper  as  one  of  the 
cleverest  of  humorous  speakers.  He  is  a  member  of 
the  famous  'Players'  and  'Authors'  Clubs  of  New  York 
and  of  the  'Poetry  Society  of  America.' ' 

Mr.  Daly  begins  his  book  "Carmina"  with  "Two 
'Mericana  Men."  This  poem  denotes  his  favorite  style 
and  theme: 

Beeg  Irish  cop  dat  walk  hees  beat 

By  dees  peanutta  stan', 
Rist  wo,  t'ree  week  w'en  we  are  meet 

Ees  call  me  "Dagoman." 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  175 

An'  w'en  he  see  how  mad  I  gat, 

Wheech  eesa  pleass  heem,  too, 
Wan  day  he  say :    "Wat's  dat, 

Ain't  'Dago'  name  for  you? 
Dat's  'Merica  name,  you  know, 

For  man  from  Eetaly; 
Eet  ess  no  harm  for  call  you  so, 

Den  why  be  mad  weeth  me?" 
First  time  he  talka  deesa  way 

I  am  too  mad  for  a  speak, 
But  nexta  time  I  justa  say: 

"All  righta,  Meester  Meeck!" 

O !  my,  I  nevva  hear  bayfore 

Sooch  langwadge  like  he  say; 
An'  he  don't  look  at  me  no  more 

For  mebbe  two,  t'ree  day. 
But  pretta  soon  agen  I  see 

Dees  beeg  poleecaman 
Dat  com'  an'  growl  an'  say  to  me : 

"Hallo,  Eyetalian! 
Now,  mebbe  so  you  gon'  deny 

Dat  dat's  a  name  for  you." 
I  smila  back  an'  mak'  reply: 

"No,  Irish,  dat's  a  true."' 
"Ha !    Joe,"  he  cry,  "you  theenk  dat  we 

Should   call   you   'Merican?" 
"Dat's  gooda  'nough,"  I  say,  "for  me, 

Eef  dat's  w'at  you  are,  Dan." 

So  now  all  times  we  speaka  so 

Like  gooda  'Merican : 
He  say  to  me,  "Good  morna,  Joe," 

I  say,  "Good  morna,  Dan." 

Mr.  Daly's  first  book,   "Canzoni,"  was  issued  in 


176  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

1906,  and  the  poet  was  greeted  with  applause  by  the 
critics.  Colonel  Roosevelt,  then  President,  was  one  of 
the  first  to  acclaim  him.  "Your  poems,"  he  wrote, 
"are  charming.  I  am  particularly  pleased  with  'The 
Song  of  the  Thrush,'  and  I  hope  you'll  give  us  many 
more  like  it." 

"Canzoni"  is  now  in  its  fifteenth  thousand,  and  his 
other  books  have  also  become  "standards"  in  the  book 
shops.  "Carmina,"  published  by  the  John  Lane  Com 
pany,  of  New  York  and  London,  is  now  in  its  seventh 
thousand,  and  the  same  is  true  of  "Madrigali,"  pub 
lished  in  1912  by  David  McKay,  Philadelphia.  Last 
year,  1913,  the  Devin-Adair  Company  of  New  York 
City,  brought  out  his  "Little  Polly's  Pomes"  and  Davis 
McKay  published  "Songs  of  Wedlock"  in  1916. 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Daly  to  the  author 
is  a  "close-up"  of  interest : 

"It's  sweet  of  you  to  invite  me  to  your  party,  and 
I'll  be  glad  of  a  chance  to  show  off  my  best  clothes. 
Or  would  you  prefer  that  I  be  just  naturally  comic? 

"I  rather  balk  at  the  autobiographical  stuff,  but  if 
everybody's  doing  it,  I  won't  spoil  the  procession.  I 
can  tell  you  'most  anything  you'd  care  to  hear. 

"I  like  all  kinds  of  life  and  fun,  but  I  have  my 
serious  moods  and  sometimes  take  myself  ditto-ly.  I 
am  a  newspaper  poet  because  I  have  elected  to  be  and 
not  because  of  a  landslide  of  magazine  rejection-slips 
against  me.  I  naturally  believe  the  bulk  of  America's 
output  of  newspaper  verse  assays  more  gold  to  the  ton 
than  the  magazine  poetry  shows.  I  like  a  lot  of  things 
that  I  have  done,  but  you  haven't  time  to  listen.  You 
should  hear  chanted  in  my  own  deep  and  expressive 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  177 

voice  my  'Song  of  the  Thrush'  (Irish),  'The  Birth 
of  Tom  O'Shanter'  and  'Ode  to  a  Thrush'  (English 
undefiled) ;  'Da  Leetla  Boy'  and  'The  Audience' 
(Italian- American).  I've  written  one  really  good  son 
net,  'To  a  Tenant,'  and  ever  so  many  ballades,  ron- 
deaux,  etc.  But  this  is  enough,  surely. 

"I'm  very  fond  of  other  poets,  but  not  when  they 
get  together — say  at  the  aviary  in  Gramercy  Park — 
to  sing  competitively  and  pick  each  other's  feathers. 
I  like  Shakespeare  and  Whitcomb  Riley,  the  two  kits 
(Marlowe  and  Morley),  Shelley  and  Marquis,  Keats 
and  Masefield,  all  the  Elizabethans — in  fact,  everybody 
who  ever  sang  even  one  wood  note  wild.  As  for  the 
vers  librists,  I  just  can't  help  saying  "to  hell  with 
them' — even  if  Amy  Lowell  is  a  perfect  gent!" 

And  just  to  make  this  biography  complete,  Daly  was 
born  in  Philadelphia,  May  28,  1871,  and  was  educated 
at  public  schools,  Villanova  College,  Pa.,  and  Ford- 
ham  University  to  the  close  of  the  sophomore  year, 


Anthony  Euwer 

Anthony  Euwer  is  known  for  his  original  work, 
"The  Limeratomy,"  an  unusual  essay  into  the  too  sel 
dom  explored  fields  of  the  limerick.  But  in  spite  of 
the  popularity  of  this  book,  it  is  perhaps  for  "Wings," 
made  popular  in  Liberty  Loan  campaigns,  that  he  has 
become  best  known.  From  it  these  lines  are  quoted : 

If  wings  will  help  our  men  to  see 
Some  Boche's  belching  battery, 
Unloosing  from  a  screen  of  trees 
Its  screeching  death  upon  the  breeze — 


178  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Or  help  our  giant  guns  to  search 
With  truer  aim  each  hidden  perch 
Of  Teuton  guns,  and  make  them  meek 
Ere  they  again  may  chance  to  speak — 
If  wings,  oh,  God,  will  do  these  things, 
Then  give  us  wings. 

If  great  destroying  wings  might  stay 

Munitions  on  their  hurried  way, 

Or  hold  a  reinforcement  back 

By  dropping  ruin  on  its  track, 

Or  yet  set  free  the  pent-up  hell 

Of  depots  filled  with  shot  and  shell, 

Or  swiftly  give  eternal  sleep 

To  ships  that  prowl  the  nether  deep — 

If  wings,  oh,  God,  will  do  these  things, 

Then  give  us  wings  and  still  more  wings.  .  .  . 

Anthony  Henderson  Euwer  was  born  in  Allegheny, 
Pa.,  February  n,  1877.  He  studied  at  Shadyside 
Academy,  Pittsburgh,  Princeton  and  at  the  New  York 
School  of  Expression  and  American  Academy  of  Dra 
matic  Arts.  He  makes  his  home  in  New  York  when 
not  on  poetry  reading  tours. 

The  writings  of  Mr.  Euwer  include  "Rickety  Rimes 
and  Riginaro,"  "Christopher  Cricket  on  Cats," 
"Rhymes  of  Our  Valley,"  and  "Wings  and  Other  War 
Rhymes." 

Charles  Hanson  Towne 

Charles  Hanson  Towne,  aside  from  being  editor 
of  The  Designer,  comes  up  for  consideration  among 
American  poets  through  his  numerous  contributions  of 
verse  to  leading  American  magazines. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  179 

"To  One  in  Heaven,"  published  in  Good  House 
keeping,  presents  the  genius  of  Mr.  Towne  in  one  of 
his  most  able  moods : 

After  you  died,  a  few  stray  letters  came, 

Bearing  your  name. 

A  friend  across  the  sea 

Wrote  with  the  old  light  laughter;  tenderly 

She  wished  that  you  were  with  her,  never  knowing 

That  now  for  you  the  winds  of  heaven  were  blowing; 

That  you  were  faring  to  a  distant  bourne, 

Whence  your  white  feet  would  nevermore  return. 

And  then  there  came, 

Like  little  bundles  of  flame, 

Bright-colored  ribbons — red,  and  yellow,  and  blue, 

Samples  from  some  gay  shop,  dainty  as  you. 

A  bit  of  lace,  a  bit  of  gossamer, 

A  rainbow  sheaf,  like  dreams  that  never  were. 

And  when  I  saw  them,  through  my  blinding  tears, 

I  thought  of  your  bright  years, 

Your  love  of  all  this  filmy  green  and  gold — 

And  your  brief  story  told. 

I  hope  the  angels  give  you  your  desire, 

O  little  heart  of  fire — 

Give  you  the  fairy  garments  that  you  crave 

Even  beyond  the  grave! 

You  would  not  be  quite  happy  in  your  new  place 

Without  your  golden  lace, 

Without  those  little,  trivial,  tender  things 

The  looms  wove  out  of  dim  imaginings. 

For  you  loved  feathery  textures,  airy  spinnings, 

Like  cobwebs  from  the  world's  remote  beginnings ; 

Soft  stuffs  as  fleecy  at  the  clouds  above, 

That  grew  more  lovely  for  your  lovely  love. 


i8o  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Who  knows  but  now  your  wings  may  be  of  fleece, 
Your  robe  of  some  fine  fabric  made  of  these: 
Rainbows  and  star-dust  and  a  lost  moonbeam, 
And  a  white  thought  from  Lady  Mary's  dream 
Of  that  first  moment  when  she  knew  that  One 
Would  live  through  her.  ...  Is  this  your  garment 

spun 

From  rapture  at  the  living  loom  of  heaven? 
O  little  angel-maid,  God's  gifts  are  freely  given ! 

Mr.  Towne  is  the  author  of  "The  Quiet  Singer  and 
Other  Poems,"  "Manhattan,"  "Youth,  and  Other 
Poems/'  "The  Tumble  Man,"  with  M.  Mayer;  "A 
Love  Garden"  and  "An  April"  in  collaboration  with 
H.  Clough-Leighter,  and  "A  Lover  in  Damascus," 
"Five  Little  Japanese  Songs,"  "A  Dream  of  Egypt" 
and  "The  Little  Princess"  in  collaboration  with  Amy 
Wood  f  orde-Finden. 

Charles  Hanson  Towne  was  born  in  Louisville,  Ken 
tucky,  on  February  2,  1877,  and  was  educated  :n  the 
common  schools  of  New  York  and  attended  the  Col 
lege  of  the  City  of  New  York  for  one  year. 

John  Curtis  Underwood 

Poet  of  the  chorus  girl,  the  motion  picture  star,  the 
straphanger,  and  all  those  various  types  which  make 
up  the  every-day  life,  is  John  Curtis  Underwood.  In 
surgent  though  he  is,  he  has  a  knack  of  portraying  the 
soul  of  the  tenderloin  in  a  realistic,  graphic  fashion. 

In  his  poem  "Central"  he  writes: 

Though  men  may  build  their  bridges  high  and  plant  their 
piers  below  the  sea, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  181 

And  drive  their  trains  across  the  sky;  a  higher  task  is 
left  to  me. 

I  bridge  the  void  'twixt  soul  and  soul ;  I  bring  the  long 
ing  lovers  near. 

I  draw  you  to  your  spirit's  goal.  I  serve  the  ends  of 
fraud  and  fear. 

The  older  fates  sat  in  the  sun.     The  cords  they  spun  were 

short  and  slight. 
I  set  my  stitches  one  by  one,  where  life  electric  fetters 

night 
Till  it  outstrips  the  planet's  speed,  and  out  of  darkness 

leaps  today; 
And  men  in  Maine  shall  hear  and  heed  a  voice  from  San 

Francisco  Bay. 

He  has  published  four  volumes  of  poems:  "The 
Iron  Muse"  (1910),  "Americans,"  (1912),  "Proces 
sionals"  (1915),  and  "War  Flames"  (1917). 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox 

Whatever  one  may  think  of  the  merits  of  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox's  writings,  which  have  had  so  wide  a 
newspaper  circulation,  certainly  here  is  a  woman  whose 
prolific  pen  has  made  her  known  to  thousands  of  peo 
ple  who  would  hardly  be  classed  as  orthodox  poetry 
readers. 

As  a  commercial  venture  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox's 
verse  has  been  a  decided  success,  and  an  admirable 
medium  of  increased  circulation  for  The  New  York 
Journal  and  allied  Hearst  publications,  for  which 
papers  she  has  been  an  editorial  writer  and  contributor 
for  a  number  of  years. 


182  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

It  was  with  the  publication  of  "Poems  of  Passion" 
that  Mrs.  Wilcox  enlarged  her  following  of  readers, 
and  while  much  water  has  run  under  the  bridge  since 
this  was  published,  there  is  a  noticeable  improvement 
in  her  latest  book,  "Sonnets  of  Sorrow  and  Triumph." 
For  example,  the  second  stanza  in  that  section  of  the 
book  bearing  "Sonnets  of  Sorrow": 

I  know  my  heart  has  always  been  devout, 
And  faith  burned  in  me  like  a  clear  white  flame. 
There  was  no  room  among  my  thoughts  for  doubt. 
Though  hopes  were  thwarted  and  though  sorrows  came, 
God  seemed  a  living  Presence,  kind  and  just, 
And  ever  near.     Yea,  even  in  great  grief 
When  parents,  friends  and  offspring  turned  to  dust 
He  stood  beside  me,  refuge  and  relief. 

But  when  one  hideous  night  you  went  away 
Deaf  to  my  cry  and  to  my  pleadings  dumb, 
You  took  God  with  you.     Now  in  vain  I  pray 
And  beg  Him  to  return:     He  does  not  come: 
Nor  has  He  sent  one  Angel  from  His  horde 
To  comfort  me  with  some  convincing  word. 

Here  is  a  vital  and  universal  experience  for  a  theme, 
and  thij  book  conies  nearest  to  real  and  vital  sonnets 
of  anything  that  Mrs.  Wilcox  has  done.  Edward  N. 
Teall,  writing  in  The  New  York  Sun,  says :  "The  'son 
net  sequence'  in  good  hands  is  very  high  art,  and  less 
capably  managed  it  can  get  pretty  low.  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox's  'Sonnets  of  Sorrow'  attain  a  lofty  level — the 
paradox  is  harmless — in  plumbing  the  depths  of  a 
heart's  despair.  Her  'Sonnets  of  Triumph,'  continu- 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  183 

ing  the  paradox,  are  on  a  much  lower  plane  of  art  in 
measuring  the  sad  soul's  upward  recovery. 

"The  sorrow,  if  not  more  genuine  than  the  joy,  is  at 
least  better  founded;  for  it  rests  upon  the  universal 
experience  of  the  bereft,  while  the  joy  springs  from 
the  thin  soil  of  spiritualism.  The  collection  of  poems 
— not  all  of  them  sonnets — has  true  logical  conse 
quence,  and  that  is  a  major  merit.  The  individual 
poems  have  certain  characteristic  and  easily  recogniz 
able  ellawheelerwilcoxian  defects  of  technique.  Equally 
characteristic  is  the  mixture  of  easy  sentiment  and 
cheap  hyperbole  with  truly  noble  feeling  and  phrase 
ology." 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  was  born  in  Johnstown  Cen 
tre,  Wisconsin,  in  1855.  She  was  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  and  married  Robert  M.  Wil 
cox  in  1884.  She  now  makes  her  home  at  "The  Bun 
galow,"  Short  Beach,  Connecticut. 

Her  works  include  the  following : 

"An  Ambitious  Man,"  "Poems  of  Pleasure,"  "A 
Woman  of  the  World,"  "A  Double  Life,"  "Three 
Women,"  "Poems  of  Sentiment,"  "Drops  of  Water," 
"Kingdom  of  Love,"  "New  Thought,  Common  Sense, 
and  What  Life  Means  to  Me,"  "Sweet  Danger,"  "An 
Erring  Woman's  Love,"  "The  Love  Sonnets  of  Abel- 
ard  and  Heloise,"  "Was  It  Suicide?,"  "Men,  Women 
and  Emotion,"  "Poems  of  Progress  and  New  Thought 
Pastels,"  "Everyday  Thoughts,"  "The  Beautiful  Land 
of  Nod,"  "Sailing  Sunny  Seas,"  "Poems  of  Passion," 
"People  of  Power,"  "Gems,"  "Maurine,"  "Around  the 
Year  With  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,"  "Picked  Poems," 
and  "Women  of  the  World." 


184  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Arthur  Guiterman 

Arthur  Guiterman  has  made  his  poetry  known  to 
thousands  through  his  contributions  to  Life. 

"Though  of  American  parentage,"  says  Mr.  Guiter 
man,  "I  was  born,  November  20,  1871,  in  Vienna, 
Austria,  my  name  being  registered  as  that  of  a  newly- 
arrived  citizen  of  the  United  States  at  the  American 
consulate  at  the  time.  The  family  returned  to  New 
York  when  I  was  two  years  old,  so  I  haven't  any  Eu 
ropean  recollections.  I  was  educated  mainly  at  Gram 
mar  School  69,  and  at  the  College  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  from  which  I  was  graduated  in  1891.  I'm  only 
a  plain  B.A.,  but  they  saw  fit  to  elect  me  to  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  a  couple  of  years  ago. 

"I  stumbled  into  journalism  and  various  editorial 
jobs,  but  have  been  out  of  harness  for  a  dozen  years 
or  so,  devoting  myself  almost  exclusively  to  writing 
verse.  For  the  last  nine  years  I  have  been  the  principal 
contributor  of  verse  to  Life,  and  I  suppose  that  I  am 
popularly  known  as  the  originator  of  'Rhymed  Re 
views'  and  other  humorous  metrical  stunts  in  that 
paper.  But  don't  try  to  pigeon-hole  me  in  any  com 
partment,  or  I'll  fool  you ;  because  I  have  always  writ 
ten,  and  shall  continue  to  write,  on  any  theme  that  in 
terests  me  or  fills  me  with  enthusiasm,  and  in  what 
ever  style  happens." 

Mr.  Guiterman's  works  include :  "Betal  Nuts," 
"Guest  Book,"  "Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese," 
"Orestes"  (with  Andre  Tridon),  "The  Laughing 
Muse,"  and  "The  Mirthful  Lyre."  Among  his  most 
popular  ballads  are  the  titles  of  "The  Call  to  the 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  185 

Colors,"  "The  Rush  of  the  Oregon,"  "Quivira,"  "The 
Storm  Ship,"  "Sleepy  Hollow,"  "Haarlem  Heights," 
"The  Ballad  of  John  Paul  Jones,"  "The  Quest  of  the 
Ribband,"  "The  Legend  of  the  First  Cam-u-el,"  and 
"This  Is  She."  In  the  fable  of  the  "Beaver  and  the 
Chick-a-dee"  there  is  a  lesson  that  many  moderns 
should  take  to  heart : 

A  melancholy  Beaver 

Resided  by  a  rill ; 
He  either  had  a  fever 

Or  else  he  had  a  chill ; 

For  Mental  Inquisition 
Had  filled  him  full  of  dole 

About  his  Earthly  Mission 
Or  his  Eternal  Soul. 

In  June,  instead  of  basking 

Or  helping  build  the  dam, 
He  vexed  his  conscience,  asking 

"Why  Is  It  That  I  am?" 

Mr.  Guiterman  conducted  a  class  in  newspaper  and 
magazine  verse  in  the  New  York  University  for  three 
years,  and  he  is  noted  as  a  clever  expert  of  intricacies 
of  metre  and  rhyme  that  most  poets  lack  the  patience 
to  master.  He  was  married  in  1909  to  Vida  Lindo  of 
New  York  and  Panama. 


CHAPTER  XV 

MARGARET     WIDDEMER,     EUNICE    TIETJENS,     CLEMENT 

WOOD,  HERMANN  HAGEDORN,  FRANCIS  CARLIN,  RIDGELY 

TORRENCE,  HARRY  KEMP 

Margaret  Widdemer 

Few  poets  of  today  are  so  fortunate  in  securing 
names  for  their  respective  works  as  is  Margaret  Wid 
demer.  Her  most  recent  volume  of  verse,  "The  Old 
Road  to  Paradise,"  has  music  in  its  name,  and  Miss 
Widdemer  has  written  no  finer  poem  than  the  one  from 
which  this  book  takes  its  title. 

Ours  is  a  dark  Easter-tide, 

And  a  scarlet  Spring, 
But  high  up  at  Heaven-Gate 

All  the  saints  sing, 
Glad  for  the  great  companies 

Returning  to  their  King. 

Oh,  in  youth  the  dawn's  a  rose, 

Dusk's  an  amethyst, 
All  the  roads  from  dusk  to  dawn 

Gay  they  wind  and  twist; 
The  old  road  to  Paradise 

Easy  it  is  missed! 
But  out  on  the  wet  battlefields, 

Few  the  roadways  wind, 
186 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  187 

One  to  grief,  one  to  death 

No  road  that's  kind — 
The  old  road  to  Paradise 

Plain  it  is  to  find! 

(Martin  in  his  Colonel's  cloak, 

Joan  in  her  mail, 
David  with  his  crown  and  sword — 

None  there  be  that  fail — 
Down  the  road  to  Paradise 

Stand  to  greet  and  hail!) 

Where  the  dark's  a  terror-thing, 

Morn  a  hope  doubt-tossed. 
Where  the  lads  lie  thinking  long 

Out  in  rain  and  frost, 
There  they  find  their  God  again, 

Long  ago  they  lost: 

Where  the  night  comes  cruelly, 

Where  the  hurt  men  moan, 
Where  the  crushed  forgotten  ones 

Whisper  prayers  alone, 
Christ  along  the  battlefields 

Comes  to  lead  His  own: 

Souls  that  would  have  withered  soon 

In  the  hot  world's  glare, 
Blown  and  gone  like  shriveled  things, 

Dusty  on  the  air, 
Rank  on  rank  they  follow  Him, 

Young  and  strong  and  fair ! 

Ours  is  a  sad  Easter-tide, 
And  a  woeful  day, 


i88  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

But  high  up  at  Heaven-Gate 

The  saints  are  all  gay, 
For  the  old  road  to  Paradise, 

That's  a  crowded  way! 

Critics  have  found  this  to  be  one  of  the  finest  war- 
inspired  poems;  certainly  it  has  been  a  popular  one, 
and  it  is  a  just  example  of  Miss  Widdemer's  beautiful 
imaginative  work,  so  well  noted  for  its  quality  and 
thought  fulness  of  heart. 

Margaret  Widdemer  was  born  in  Doylestown,  Penn 
sylvania,  and  was  educated  at  home.  She  is  well 
known  as  a  novelist  as  well  as  poet. 

Her  other  volume  of  published  verse  appeared  un 
der  the  title  of  "Factories  and  Other  Poems." 

Eunice  Tietjens 

William  Stanley  Braithwaite,  some  few  years  ago, 
gave  prominent  mention  in  his  annual  anthology  to 
Eunice  Tietjens,  whose  work  in  verse  was  beginning 
to  attract  considerable  attention  among  a  more  dis 
cerning  audience.  She  has  written  but  one  volume  of 
verse,  "Profiles  from  China,"  an  admirable  piece  of 
writing,  which  was  published  in  1917. 

From  "The  Most  Sacred  Mountain,"  published  in 
Poetry,  A  Magazine  of  Verse,  of  which  Miss  Tietjens 
is  an  associate  editor,  the  following  is  quoted : 

Here,  when  Confucius  came,  a  half  a  thousand  years  be 
fore  the  Nazarene,  he  stepped,  with  me,  thus  into 
timelessness. 

The  stone  beside  us  waxes  old,  the  carven  stone  that 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  189 

says:    "On  this  spot  once  Confucius  stood  and  felt 

the  smallness  of  the  world  below." 
The  stone  grows  old : 
Eternity  is  not  for  stones. 

But  I  shall  go  down  from  this  airy  space,  this  swift  white 

peace,  this  stinging  exultation. 
And  time  will  close  about  me,  and  my  soul  stir  to  the 

rhythm  of  the  daily  round. 
Yet,  having  known,  life  will  not  press  so  close,  and  always 

I  shall  feel  time  ravel  thin  about  me; 
For  once  I  stood 
In  the  white  windy  presence  of  eternity. 

Eunice  Tietjens  was  born  in  Chicago  in  1884,  and 
after  having  studied  in  Paris,  Dresden  and  Geneva, 
returned  to  the  city  of  her  birth,  where  she  makes  her 
home. 

Clement  Wood 

Poetry,  tennis  and  life — these,  according  to  his  own 
declaration,  are  the  interests  of  Clement  Wood,  whose 
first  volume  of  verse,  "Glad  of  Earth,"  was  published 
early  in  1917. 

In  The  Newarker  appeared  one  of  Mr.  Wood's  most 
significant  poems,  which  he  calls  "The  Smithy  of  God, 
a  Chant,"  which  concludes  as  follows: 

But  still  I  labor  and  bend  and  toil, 

Shaping  anew  the  stuff  I  spoil ; 

And  out  of  the  smothering  din  and  grime 

I  forge  a  city  for  all  time: 

A  city  beautiful  and  clean, 

With  wide  sweet  avenues  of  green, 


190  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

With  gracious  homes  and  houses  of  trade, 
Where  souls  as  well  as  things  are  made. 
I  forge  a  people  fit  to  dwell 
Unscathed  in  the  hottest  heart  of  hell, 
And  fit  to  shine,  erect  and  straight, 
When  we  shall  see  His  kingdom  come 
On  earth,  over  all  of  Christendom, — 
And  I  stand  up,  shining  and  great, 
Lord  of  an  unforeseen  estate. 
Then  I  will  cry,  and  clearly  then, 
I  am  Newark,  forger  of  men. 

Clement  Wood  was  born  in  Tuscaloosa,  Alabama, 
September  I,  1888.  He  resides  in  New  York. 

Hermann  Hagedorn 

Hermann  Hagedorn  is  engaged  in  writing  and  farm 
ing  in  normal  times,  but  during  the  war  has  been 
spending  his  efforts  in  propaganda  work  on  the  exec 
utive  committee  of  the  Vigilantes. 

"To  the  Makers  of  Song,"  with  which  William 
Stanley  Braithwaite  began  his  "Anthology  of  Maga 
zine  Verse  for  1917,"  Mr.  Hagedorn  writes: 

Surely  the  time  for  making  songs  has  come 
Now  that  the  Spring  is  in  the  air  again! 
Trees  blossom  though  men  bleed;  and  after  rain 

The  robins  hop;  and  soon  the  bees  will  hum. 

Long  was  the  winter,  long  our  lips  were  dumb, 
Long  under  snow  our  loyal  dreams  have  lain. 

Surely  the  time  for  making  songs  has  come 
Now  that  the  Spring  is  in  the  air  again ! 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  191 

The  Spring! — with  bugles  and  a  rumbling  drum! 
Oh,  builders  of  high  music  out  of  pain, 
Now  is  the  hour  with  singing  to  make  vain 

The  boast  of  kings  in  Pandemonium! 

Surely  the  time  for  making  songs  has  come ! 

Born  in  New  York  City  on  July  18,  1882,  Mr. 
Hagedorn  was  educated  at  Bedford  Academy,  Poly 
technic  Institute,  Brooklyn,  The  Hill  School,  and  Har 
vard  University.  His  home  is  at  Sunnytop  Farm, 
Fairfield,  Connecticut. 

Francis  Carlin 

Under  the  title  of  "The  New  Floor-Walker  Poet 
Genius,"  William  Stanley  Braithwaite,  writing  in  The 
Boston  Transcript,  of  Francis  Carlin,  says:  "Most 
Irish  poets,  it  seems,  have  two  names,  but  I  know  only 
one  who  has  two  lives.  .  .  .  New  York  is  nourishing 
a  new  poetic  sensation  in  the  person  of  a  young  Irish 
man  whose  vocation  is  pursued  as  the  floor  superin 
tendent  in  the  rug  and  drapery  department  of  the  R.  H. 
Macy  Co.'s  store.  All  day  this  young  man  is  the  effi 
cient  director  of  his  employers'  interests  and  the  pub 
lic's  needs,  keeping  the  service  of  his  assistants  up  to 
standard  and  adjusting  the  claims  of  patrons  to  their 
satisfaction.  The  superintendent  is  Mr.  J.  F.  C.  Mac- 
Donnell,  a  bright,  alert  young  man  of  mercantile  habits 
and  suavity ;  the  poet  is  Francis  Carlin,  with  a  passion 
for  Beauty  and  Ireland  that  is  one  of  the  most  ex 
traordinary  accidents — I  know  no  other  term  by  which 
to  name  his  case — in  contemporary  American  poetry. 


192  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

I  heard  everywhere  in  New  York  City,  during  my  re 
cent  visit,  gossip  and  praise  of  this  poet  about  whom 
little  or  nothing  has  been  said  in  print.  My  curiosity 
and  interest  led  me  on  a  pilgrimage  to  "Macy's"  to  see 
the  poet,  to  get  into  the  current,  as  it  were,  of  his  per 
sonality,  and  to  get  him  to  tell  me  something  of  him 
self  for  readers  waiting  to  hear  the  news  of  a  'new 
poet.'  " 

Mr.  Carlin  dedicates  his  book,  "My  Ireland,"  as 
follows : 

It  is  here  that  the  book  begins 
And  it  is  here  that  a  prayer  is  asked 
For  the  soul  of  the  scribe  who  wrote  it  for 
The  glory  of  God, 
The  honor  of  Erin 
And  the  pleasure  of  the  woman 
Who  came  from  Both — 
His  mother. 

Of  the  Celtic  poems  written  by  Mr.  Carlin,  "The 
Ballad  of  Marget"  best  shows  the  piquant  music  of  this 
American  Celt: 

O  God,  that  I 

May  arise  with  the  Gael 
To  the  song  in  the  sky 

Over  Inisf ail ! 

Ulster,  your  dark 

Mold  for  me; 
Munster,  a  lark 

Hold  for  me! 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  193 

Cannaght,  a  caoine 

Croon  for  me; 
Leinster,  a  mean 

Stone  for  me  I 

O  God,  that  I 

May  arise  with  the  Gael 
To  the  song  in  the  sky 

Over  Inisfail! 

Altho  Mr.  Carlin  sings  the  true  lyric  of  Erin,  he 
is  an  American  by  birth,  having  been  born  at  Bay 
Shore,  L.  I.,  on  April  7,  1881. 


Ridgely  Torrence 

"Granny  Maumee  and  Other  Plays"  caused  a  dis 
tinct  ripple  in  New  York's  theatrical  season  when  these 
were  presented  in  1917.  Ridgely  Torrence,  their  au 
thor,  instantly  came  to  the  fore  as  a  writer  to  be  con 
sidered,  and  since  that  time  more  of  his  poems-— ex 
tremely  good  ones,  by  the  way — have  found  their  way 
into  print. 

His  lines,  "The  Son,"  appeared  as  follows  in  the 
"Monroe-Henderson  Anthology" : 

I  heard  an  old  farm-wife, 

Selling  some  barley, 
Mingle  her  life  with  life 

And  the  name  "Charley." 

Saying:  "The  crop's  all  in, 
We're  about  through  now; 


i94  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Long  nights  will  soon  begin, 
We're  just  us  two  now. 

"Twelve  bushel  at  sixty  cents, 

It's  all  I  carried — 
He  sickened  making  fence; 

He  was  to  be  married — 

"It  feels  like  frost  was  near — 

His  hair  was  curly. 
The  spring  was  late  that  year, 

But  the  harvest  early." 

Ridgely  Torrence  was  born  at  Xenia,  Ohio,  on  No 
vember  27,  1875,  and  was  educated  by  private  tutors 
and  at  Miami  (Ohio)  University  and  Princeton.  He 
was  married  to  Olivia  Howard  Dunbar  in  February  of 
1914.  He  has  been  librarian  of  the  Astor  Library  of 
New  York,  the  Lenox  Library,  assistant  editor  of  The 
Critic,  assistant  editor  of  The  Cosmopolitan  Magazine, 
and  is  a  member  of  the  National  Institute  of  Arts  and 
Letters.  His  writings  include :  "The  House  of  a  Hun 
dred  Lights,"  "El  Dorado,  a  Tragedy,"  "Abelard  and 
Heloise,"  "Granny  Maumee,"  "The  Rider  of  Dreams," 
and  "Simon  the  Cyrenian." 

Mr.  Torrence  makes  his  home  in  Xenia,  Ohio. 

Harry  Kemp 

Harry  Kemp  was  born  in  Youngstown,  Ohio,  in 
1883.  He  was  educated  in  the  public  schools  and  at 
the  age  of  ten  wrote  his  first  poem,  which  was  on  the 
subject  of  intoxication. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  195 

Reading  books  of  travel  and  adventure  planted  the 
seed  of  wanderlust  in  his  soul,  and  at  the  age  of  thir 
teen  he  ran  away  from  home.  When  he  was  seven 
teen  he  joined  a  German  sailing  ship  as  cabin  boy  and 
went  with  it  to  Australia.  There  he  wandered  through 
the  country  for  some  time,  after  which  he  travelled  to 
Taku,  China,  as  a  cattleman.  He  was  smuggled  on 
board  a  transport  which  was  going  to  the  Philippines. 
He  next  went  to  California,  then  through  the  south 
eastern  states.  His  high  ideas  of  romance  and  love  of 
adventure  were  fulfilled  when  he  was  held  in  Texas 
on  a  charge  of  burglary.  While  awaiting  trial  he 
studied  mathematics,  history  and  literature.  When  he 
was  acquitted  he  returned  home,  spending  the  next 
few  years  at  Mt.  Hermon  School.  He  tramped 
through  the  country  again,  finally  settling  down  at  the 
University  of  Kansas,  where  he  spent  the  happiest 
years  of  his  life. 

About  this  time  his  first  poem  was  accepted  by  Dr. 
William  Hayes  Ward  of  The  New  York  Independent, 
after  which  other  poems  and  articles  were  published 
in  magazines  and  in  book  form.  Mr.  Kemp,  wishing 
to  reach  London  and  have  a  literary  season  there,  went 
as  a  stowaway,  having  no  funds,  on  the  Oceanic. 
He  was  held  for  three  weeks  in  a  Winchester  jail  on 
a  technical  charge  of  embezzling  passage  by  the  steam 
ship  company.  He  reached  London,  however,  and 
succeeded  in  causing  the  sensation  that  he  wished  in 
the  literary  realm.  He  was  privileged  in  being  the  pet 
of  society,  as  well  as  becoming  personally  acquainted 
with  George  More,  Edward  Carpenter,  John  Burns, 
Alan  Seeger  and  Rupert  Brooke.  He  then  became  ac- 


196  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

quainted  with  the  younger  radical  set.  After  a  full 
season  in  London,  he  sailed  for  New  York  on  the 
Kaiser  and  Augusta  Victoria,  arriving  July  2nd.  In 
August  the  World  War  cast  its  shadow  upon  the  earth 
and  Mr.  Kemp  wished  to  enlist  in  the  Foreign  Legion, 
but  Cupid  changed  his  plans,  for  he  met  Miss  Mary 
Pyne  and  married  her  soon  after.  Since  then  he  has 
lived  in  New  York  City. 

Mr.  Kemp  is  the  author  of  "Judas,"  "The  Cry  of 
Youth,"  and  "The  Thresher's  Wife,"  but  distinctive 
among  the  war  poems  of  1917  was  "Two  Ways," 
published  in  The  New  York  Tribune : 

It's  a  long,  long  journey  to  the  weary  end  of  war, 
While  the  shells  burst  above  into  star  on  colored  star 
And  the  guns  lift  and  flash  like  the  Northern  Lights  afar. 

It's  a  long,  long  journey  where  the  sniper's  bullet  speeds, 
And  the  hid  machine  gun  sows  all  the  air  with  deadly 

seeds, 
While  each  grappling  hour  brings  forth  Iliads  of  noble 

deeds. 

It's  a  long,  long  journey  as  the  Huns  are  hammered  back 
By  the  big  guns  and  the  small,  bayonet  and  gas  attack, 
Where  the  fields  are  blasted  bare  and  the  towns  are 
charred  and  black.  .  .  . 

It's  a  short,  short  journey  to  the  peace  that  must  not  be, 
To  the  ready  lips  that  wait  for  the  cheek  of  liberty — 
To  the  Judas  peace  that  waits  with  its  thirty  pence  for 
fee! 


CHAPTER  XVI 

WILLIAM     STANLEY     BRAITHWAITE,     THOMAS     WALSH, 

WILLARD  WATTLES,  BLISS  CARMAN,  SHERWOOD 

ANDERSON 

William  Stanley  Braithwaite 

There  are  few  critics  of  American  poetry  whose 
criticism  is  more  respected  than  that  of  William  Stan 
ley  Braithwaite,  whose  annual  anthology  of  magazine 
verse  is  one  of  the  literary  events  of  each  fall  publish 
ing  season  and  for  the  appearance  of  which  so  many 
poets  eagerly  await. 

No  critic  of  American  poetry  has  been  more  con 
structive  in  his  writing  than  Mr.  Braithwaite.  He  has 
sponsored  the  good  that  has  manifested  itself  in  many 
of  our  younger  poets  and  his  enthusiasm  is  of  a  sane, 
well-founded  stock.  He  seeks  the  best  in  our  Ameri 
can  verse  and  nearly  always  finds  it. 

It  is  therefore  of  two-fold  interest  when  Mr.  Brai 
thwaite  produces  such  poetry  as  "The  Wet  Woods," 
quoted  from  Edward  J.  O'Brien's  "Masque  of  Poets." 

This  path  leads  to  the  laurel, 

And  that  winds  to  the  burn ; 
Hemlocks,  pines  and  birches, 

Know  the  one  that  I  turn. 
197 


198  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

It  is  wet  in  the  woods  today, — 
And  perhaps,  the  sun  tomorrow, 

Shall  weave  its  gold,  while  away 
I  will  be  alone  with  my  sorrow. 

On  December  6,  1878,  William  Stanley  Braithwaite 
was  born  in  Boston,  the  son  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William 
Smith  Braithwaite.  Unlike  most  critics  and  poets  he 
is  mainly  self-educated.  He  married  Emma  Kelly  of 
Montross,  Virginia,  on  July  30,  1903.  As  editor  of 
The  Poetry  Journal,  Boston,  Mr.  Braithwaite  won 
admittance  to  the  Poetry  Society  of  America,  and  is 
now  a  member  of  the  Authors'  Club.  His  works  in 
clude  "Lyrics  of  Life  and  Love,"  "The  Book  of  Eliz 
abethan  Verse,"  "The  House  of  Falling  Leaves,"  "The 
Book  of  Georgian  Verse,"  "The  Book  of  Restoration 
Verse,"  "Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1913," 
"The  Message  of  the  Trees,"  "Contemporary  Reviews- 
Essays  in  Literary  Opinion,"  and  "New  England 
Poems  and  Lyrics."  Mr.  Braithwaite  is  also  a  con 
tributor  to  the  Boston  Transcript,  Forum,  Century, 
Lippincott's,  Scribners,  Atlantic  Monthly,  etc.  He  re 
sides  at  Boston,  Mass. 

Thomas  Walsh 

Thomas  Walsh,  critic  and  poet,  has  to  his  credit  a 
number  of  American  poems  of  significant  value  in  the 
estimate  of  contemporary  American  poets.  There  is 
a  love  of  the  old  world  and  the  new  in  his  writings,  as 
may  be  noted  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  his  poem, 
"The  Great  Adventure,"  and  his  lines,  "On  the  Lutes 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  199 

of  France,"  in  his  volume,  "Gardens  Overseas  and 
Other  Poems": 

In  my  heart  is  the  sound  of  drums 
And  the  sweep  of  the  bugles  calling; 

The  day  of  the  Great  Adventure  comes, 
And  the  tramp  of  feet  is  falling,  falling, 

Ominous  falling,  everywhere, 

By  street  and  lane,  by  field  and  square, — 
To  answer  the  Voice  appalling ! 

(From  'The  Great  Adventure") 

THE  FAUN 

A  terra-cotta  Faun  grimaces 
Smiling  o'er  his  grassy  places, 
Doubtless  in  his  foresight  keen 
Thinking  on  the  hapless  scene 
Soon  to  mock  this  pause  serene, 
That  hath  led  me  and  hath  led  thee 
In  pilgrim's  doleful  vagrancy 
Unto  this  moment  now,  that  comes 
To  sweep  us  to  the  sound  of  drums. 
(From  "On  the  Lutes  of  France.") 

Thomas  Walsh  was  born  in  Brooklyn,  New  York, 
October  14,  1875.  He  was  educated  in  the  George 
town  University,  Columbia,  and  Notre  Dame  Univer 
sity,  and  was  author  of  the  class  poem  of  Georgetown 
University  in  1892.  He  has  been  a  contributor  of  both 
prose  and  verse  to  English  and  American  magazines 
and  reviews.  Mr.  Walsh  is  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Seville,  Georgetown  Society,  New  York, 
Colombian  (S.  A.)  Academy  of  Letters,  and  the  His 
panic  Society  of  America. 


200  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Mr.  Walsh's  works  comprise  the  following  titles: 
"The  Prison  Ships,"  "The  Pilgrim  Kings,"  "Eleven 
Poems  of  Ruben  Dario,"  and  "Gardens  Overseas  and 
Other  Poems." 

Willard  Wattles 

Magazine  editors  and  book  publishers  have  forecast 
a  brilliant  future  for  Willard  Wattles,  who  has  seen 
much  of  his  verse  already  published  in  various  repre 
sentative  magazines  and  whose  first  book  appeared  in 
the  fall  of  1918  under  the  title  of  "Lanterns  for  Geth- 
semane."  This  volume  is  made  up  of  a  number  of 
lyrics  so  arranged  as  to  form  a  long  sequence,  the  one 
central  theme  of  which  is  a  modern  and  somewhat 
mystical  treatment  of  xthe  religion  and  personality  of 
Christ.  His  poem,  "Return,"  published  in  Contem 
porary  Verse,  shows  the  religious  quality  of  his  work, 
from  which  the  following  paragraphs  are  taken : 

Jesus,  Jesus, 

Go  along  before 
To  a  high  house 

With  a  silver  door. 

But  I'll  stop  first 

To  clean  my  feet, 
And  then  sit  down 

By  the  chimney  seat. 

And  Jesus  will  laugh 

And  say  it's  good 
That  I've  moved  into 

His  neighborhood. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  201 

When  he  lights  his  pipe 

I  think  he'll  scratch 
The  Morning-Star 

For  his  safety-match. 

We'll  drink  all  night 

From  a  good  brown  cup, 
And  not  go  to  bed 

Till  the  sun  comes  up. 

Wise  man,  wise  man, 

Fingers  and  thumbs, 
This  is  the  way 

That  Jesus  conies. 

Willard  Wattles  was  born  at  Baynesville,  Kansas, 
June  8,  1888,  and  was  educated  at  the  University 
of  Kansas,  where  he  was  an  instructor  until  the  War 
called  his  services  into  somewhere  "over  there."  Ac 
cording  to  Mr.  Braithwaite,  Wattles  is  "university  in 
structor,  harvest-hand,  critic,  hobo,  poet,  and  interested 
in  practical  Christianity,  but  not  in  creeds."  He  was 
co-author  with  Harry  Kemp  of  a  volume  of  verse, 
"Songs  from  the  Hill."  He  makes  his  home  in  Law- 
rence^  Kansas. 

Bliss  Carman 

When  Edward  J.  O'Brien  was  conducting  his 
Masque  of  Poets  in  The  Bookman,  there  was  one  of 
the  collection  that  caused  more  than  passing  com 
ment,  and  many  were  the  opinions  given  as  to  the 
author.  It's  title  was  "Moment  Musicale,"  and  when 
the  authors  of  the  respective  poems  were  announced, 


202  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

the  name  of  Bliss  Carman  was  attached  to  this  poem, 
one  of  the  finest  in  the  series : 

The  round  moon  hangs  above  the  rim 
Of  silent  and  blue  shadowed  trees. 

And  all  the  earth  is  vague  and  dim 
In  its  blue  veil  of  mysteries. 

On  such  a  night  one  must  believe 
The  Golden  Age  returns  again 

With  lyric  beauty,  to  retrieve 

The  world  from  dreariness  and  pain. 

And  down  the  wooded  aisles,  behold 

Where  dancers  through  the  dusk  appear! 

Piping  their  rapture  as  of  old, 

They  bring  immortal  freedom  near. 

A  moment  on  the  brink  of  night 

They  tread  their  transport  in  the  dew 

And  to  the  rhythm  of  their  delight, 
Behold,  all  things  are  made  anew ! 

Bliss  Carman  was  born  at  Fredericton,  N.  B.,  on 
April  15,  1 86 1.  He  was  educated  at  the  University 
of  New  Brunswick,  University  of  Edinburgh  and  Har 
vard.  He  has  been  editor  of  The  Independent,  The 
Chap  Book,  and  is  author  of  the  following  works : 

"Low  Tide  on  Grand  Pre,"  "A  Sea-Mark,"  "Behind 
the  Arras,"  "Ballads  of  Lost  Haven,"  "By  the  Aurelian 
Wall,"  "Songs  from  Vagabondia"  (with  Richard  Ho- 
vey),  "More  Songs  from  Vagabondia,"  "Last  Songs  of 
Vagabondia,"  "St.  Kavin,"  "A  Ballad,"  "At  Michael 
mas,"  "The  Girl  in 'the  Poster,"  "The  Green  Book  of 
the  Bards,"  "The  Vengeance  of  Noel  Brassard,"  "Ode 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  203 

on  the  Coronation  of  King  Edward,"  "From  the  Book 
of  Myths,"  "Pipes  of  Pan,  No.  i,"  "Pipes  of  Pan, 
No.  2,"  "Pipes  of  Pan,  Nos.  3,  4  and  5,"  "Poems," 
"Collected  Edition,"  "Kinship  of  the  Book  of  Valen 
tines,"  "The  Making  of  Personality,"  "The  Gate  of 
Peace,"  "The  Rough  Rider,"  "A  Painter's  Holiday," 
"Echoes  from  Vagabondia,"  "Daughters  of  Dawn" 
(with  Mary  Perry  King). 
Mr.  Carman's  home  is  at  New  Caanan,  Conn. 

Sherwood  Anderson 

Sherwood  Anderson's  "Spring  Song,"  published  in 
his  "Mid-American  Chants,"  is  one  of  the  most  ad 
mirable  poems  to  come  from  this  writer  of  the  mid 
west. 

SPRING  SONG 

In  the  forest,  amid  old  trees  and  wet  dead  leaves,  a  shrine. 

Men  on  the  wet  leaves  kneeling. 

The  spirit  of  God  in  the  air  above  a  shrine. 

Now,  America,  you  press  your  lips  to  mine, 
Feel  on  your  lips  the  throbbing  of  my  blood. 
Christ,  come  to  life  and  life  calling, 
Sweet  and  strong. 

Spring.     God  in  the  air  above  old  fields. 

Farmers  marking  fields  for  the  planting  of  the  corn. 

Fields  marked  for  corn  to  stand  in  long  straight  aisles. 

In  the  spring  I  press  your  body  down  on  wet  cold  new- 
plowed  ground. 
Men,  give  your  souls  to  me. 
I  would  have  my  sacred  way  with  you. 


204  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

In  the  forest,  amid  old  trees  and  wet  dead  leaves,  a  shrine. 
Men  rising  from  the  kneeling  place  to  sing. 
Everywhere  in  the  fields  now  the  orderly  planting  of  corn. 

In  his  own  preface  to  "Mid-American  Chants,"  Mr. 
Anderson  says :  "For  this  book  of  chants  I  ask  simply 
that  it  be  allowed  to  stand  stark  against  the  back 
ground  of  my  own  place  and  generation.  In  secret  a 
million  men  and  women  are  trying,  as  I  have  tried 
here,  to  express  the  hunger  within  and  I  have  dared  to 
put  these  chants  forth  only  because  I  hope  and  believe 
they  may  find  an  answering  and  clearer  call  in  the 
hearts  of  other  Mid-Americans." 

Mr.  Anderson  also  is  a  short  story  writer  of  unusual 
and  unique  style.  He  makes  his  home  in  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FLORENCE    EARLE    COATES,    AMELIA    JOSEPHINE    BURR, 

EDNA     ST.     VINCENT     MILLAY,     LIZETTE     WOODWORTH 

REESE,  BENJAMIN  R.  C.  LOW,  HAROLD  COOK 

Florence  Earle  Coates 

"The  Smile  of  Reims,"  by  Florence  Earle  Coates, 
published  in  "The  Bellman,"  is  one  of  the  most  ad 
mirable  poems  yet  to  come  from  this  talented  poet. 

"The  smile,"  they  called  her, — "La  Sourire";  and  fair — 
A  sculptured  angel  on  the  northern  door 
Of  the  Cathedral's  west  fagade — she  wore 

Through  the  long  centuries  of  toil  and  caVe 

That  smile,  mysteriously  wrought  and  rare, 
As  if  she  saw  brave  visions  evermore — 
Kings,  and  an  armored  Maid  who  lilies  bore, 

And  all  the  glories  that  had  once  been  there. 

How  like  to  thee,  her  undefeated  Land! 
Wounded  by  bursting  shells,  a  little  space 

Broken  she  lay  beneath  her  ancient  portal ; 
But  lifted  from  the  earth  with  trembling  hand, 
Victorious,  still  glowed  upon  her  face 

Thy  smile,  heroic  France,  love-given  and  immortal! 

Florence  Earle  Coates  was  born  in  Philadelphia  and 
educated  at  private  schools  and  at  the  Convent  of  the 

205 


206  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Sacred  Heart,  France.     She  also  studied  in  Brussels. 

On  January  7,  1879,  she  was  married  to  Edward 
Hornor  Coates.  She  was  president  of  the  Browning 
Society,  1895  to  1903  and  1907  and  1908,  and  is  a 
founder  of  the  Contemporary  Club,  Philadelphia,  1886. 

Her  published  works  include :  "Poems,"  "Mine  and 
Thine,"  "Lyrics  of  Life,"  "Ode  on  the  Coronation  of 
King  George  V,"  and  "The  Unconquered  Air." 

"To  Mrs.  Coates,  as  to  many  of  our  poets,  literature 
and  its  heroes  offer  a  cherished  stimulus ;  yet  she  makes 
us  feel,  much  more  than  do  many  of  her  contempo 
raries,  how  suggestive  are  the  things  that  lie  beyond 
the  printed  page.  So  clearly  indicative  of  her  whole 
attitude  as  a  poet  is  the  'Song  of  Life,'  that  we  must 
quote  it  intact: 

Maiden  of  the  laughing  eyes, 

Primrose-kirtled,  winged,  free, 
Virgin  daughter  of  the  skies — 
Joy — whom  gods  and  mortals  prize, 

Share  thy  smiles  with  me! 

Yet — lest  I,  unheeding,  borrow 

Pleasure  that  today  endears 
And  benumbs  the  heart  tomorrow — 
Turn  not  wholly  from  me,  Sorrow ! 

Let  me  share  thy  tears! 

Give  me  of  thy  fulness,  Life! 

Pulse  and  passion,  power,  breath, 
Vision  pure,  heroic  strife — 
Give  me  of  thy  fulness,  Life ! 

Nor  deny  me  death ! 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  207 

"The  sensitive  spirit  reflected  in  these  lines  runs 
through  all  of  Mrs.  Coates'  work.  It  comes  out  in 
her  commemorative  poems,  in  her  graceful  tributes  to 
Stedman,  Stevenson  and  others;  it  is  discernible  in 
such  a  trilogy  as  she  has  written  on  an  historic  figure, 
Joan  of  Arc ;  it  illuminates  the  vignette  of  pathos  which 
she  calls  'Alms/  and  it  tells  constantly  in  those  poems 
in  which  purely  poetical  moods  are  expressed.  Her 
optimism  has  no  strain  of  weakness;  it  is  rooted  rather 
in  a  fine  and  courageous  conception  of  life." 

This  is  The  New  York  Tribune's  very  excellent  sum 
mary  of  Mrs.  Coates'  work,  whose  poems  have  found 
such  real  favor  with  critics  throughout  the  country 
and  of  whom  James  Whitcomb  Riley  said,  "The  poems 
are  truly  poems  because  of  their  simple,  natural  in 
spiration.  A  new  uplift  and  hopefulness  comes  with 
the  reading  of  the  volume — every  line!" 

Amelia  Josephine  Burr 

While  the  name  of  Amelia  Josephine  Burr  has  for 
many  years  been  associated  with  the  best  in  American 
poetry,  it  is  in  "The  Silver  Trumpet"  that  the  old 
Revolutionary  spirit  of  America  finds  birth  once  more 
in  a  new  war  verse  that  is  of  compelling  merit. 

"Old  feelings  love  old  forms,  and  Miss  Burr,  never 
much  prone  to  capering  or  simpering  innovation,  has 
spoken  reverently  and  simply  in  the  speech  and  intona 
tion  of  the  fathers,"  says  The  Nation.  "The  poems 
have  their  limitations ;  they  are  a  little  stressful,  a  lit 
tle  hortatory;  the  distinction  they  achieve  may  not 
have  that  finality  which  means  duration. 


208  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Is  all  our  world  upon  a  counter  laid? 

That  is  their  taunt  who  say  they  know  us  well. 
Then  let  us  like  true  merchants  to  our  trade; 

What  wares  has  God  to  sell  ? 

A  world  at  liberty,  a  path  made  clear 

For  steadfast  justice  and  enduring  peace, 

Nations  released  forever  from  the  fear 
Of  evil  days  like  these. 

A  sound  investment !  but — the  price  is  high.  .  .  . 

Long  hoarded  wealth  in  ruin,  flame  and  steel, 
Death  lurking  in  the  sea  and  in  the  sky — 

What  say  you?     Shall  we  deal? 

We  take  thy  bargain,  Master  of  the  Mart, 
Though  we  may  flinch,  we  cannot  turn  away. 

Send  thy  resistless  fire  upon  our  heart 
And  make  us  strong  to  pay ! 

Amelia  Josephine  Burr  was  born  in  New  York  in 
1878  and  received  her  education  at  Hunter  College. 
She  lives  at  Englewood,  New  Jersey.  Among  her  pub 
lications  are  "The  Point  of  Life  and  Plays  in  the 
Market-Place,"  "Afterglow,"  "The  Roadside  Fire," 
"In  Deep  Places,"  "Life  and  Living,"  "A  Dealer  in 
Empires,"  and  has  edited  "Sylvander  and  Clarinda," 
and  "The  Love  Letters  of  Robert  Burns  and  Agnes 
McLehose." 

s 

Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay 

"Renascence,"  written  at  the  age  of  nineteen, 
brought  the  name  of  Edna  St.  Vincent  Millay  to  the 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  209 

fore  as  one  to  be  considered  in  contemporary  poetry. 
Although  Miss  Millay  lives  in  New  York,  her  pub 
lished  "Figs  from  Thistles"  bears  out  her  claim  of 
being  a  later  Elizabethan  poet  rather  than  a  modern. 
"The  Faithful  Lover"  is  a  worth-while  example  of 
Miss  Millay's  writing: 

Oh,  think  not  I  am  faithful  to  a  vow ! 

Faithless  am  I  save  to  Love's  self  alone. 
Were  you  not  lovely  I  would  leave  you  now: 

After  the  feet  of  beauty  fly  my  own. 
Were  you  not  still  my  hunger's  rarest  food, 

And  water  ever  to  my  wildest  thirst, 
I  would  desert  you,— think  not  but  I  would ! — 

And  seek  another  as  I  sought  you  first. 

But  you  are  mobile  as  the  veering  air, 

And  all  your  charms  more  changeful  than  the  tide; 
Wherefore  to  be  inconstant  is  no  care: 

I  have  but  to  continue  at  your  side. 
So  wanton,  light  and  false,  my  love,  are  you, 
I  am  most  faithless  when  I  most  am  true. 

There  is  a  rare  whimsical  quality  and  a  true  lyric 
sense  in  the  poems  of  Miss  Millay.  Witness  "The 
Penitent,"  from  Harriet  Monroe's  Poetry:  A  Magazine 
of  Verse: 

I  had  a  little  Sorrow, 

Born  of  a  little  Sin, 
I  found  a  room  all  damp  with  gloom 

And  shut  us  all  within ; 
And,  "Little  Sorrow,  weep,"  said  I, 
"And,  Little  Sin,  pray  God  to  die, 


210  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

And  I  upon  the  floor  will  lie 
And  think  how  bad  I've  been !" 

Alas  for  pious  planning — 

It  mattered  not  a  whit! 
As  far  as  gloom  went  in  that  room, 

The  lamp  might  have  been  lit! 
My  little  Sorrow  would  not  weep, 
My  little  Sin  would  go  to  sleep — 
To  save  my  soul  I  could  not  keep 

My  graceless  mind  on  it! 

So  up  I  got  in  anger, 

And  took  a  book  I  had, 
And  put  a  ribbon  on  my  hair 

To  please  a  passing  lad. 
And,  "One  thing  there's  no  getting  by — 
I've  been  a  wicked  girl,"  said  I ; 
"But  if  I  can't  be  sorry,  why, 

I  might  as  well  be  glad !" 

Lisette  Woodsworth  Reese 

Lizette  Woodsworth  Reese,  a  new  voice  in  our 
American  poetry,  and  admired  greatly  by  Mr.  H.  L. 
Mencken,  is  represented  in  Stanley  Braithwaite's  "An 
thology  of  Magazine  Verse"  with  the  following  poem : 

ARRAIGNMENT 

What  wage,  what  guerdon,  Life,  asked  I  of  you  ? 

Brooches ;  old  houses ;  yellow  trees  in  fall ; 

A  gust  of  daffodils  by  a  gray  wall; 
Books ;  small  lads'  laughter ;  song  at  drip  of  dew  ? 
Or  said  I,  "Make  me  April.     I  would  go, 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  211 

Night-long,  day-long,  down  the  gay  little  grass, 
And  therein  see  myself  as  in  a  glass ; 
There  is  none  other  weather  I  would  know !" 
Content  was  I  to  live  like  any  flower, 
Sweetly  and  humbly;  dream  each  season  round 

The  blossomy  things  that  serve  a  girl  for  bread, 
Inviolate  against  the  bitter  hour. 
You  poured  my  dreams  like  water  on  the  ground : 
I  think  it  would  be  best  if  I  were  dead. 

Lizette  Woodsworth  Reese  was  born  in  Baltimore 
County,  Maryland,  in  1856,  and  was  educated  in  Bal 
timore.  Teacher  by  profession,  she  has  found  time 
to  publish  four  books  of  verse  which  have  endeared 
her  to  many  discerning  contemporaries  of  good  poetry. 
"A  Branch  of  May,"  "A  Handful  of  Lavender,"  "A 
Quiet  Road,"  and  "A  Wayside  Lute"  are  the  titles  of 
her  books.  Her  home  is  in  Baltimore. 

Benjamin  R.  C.  Low 

Benjamin  R.  C.  Low's  tribute  to  Alan  Seeger  in 
"These  United  States"  will  stand  out  as  one  of  the 
most  striking  war  poems  produced  by  an  American 
poet  of  today.  Majestic  in  its  swing,  international  in 
its  thought  and  feeling,  this  splendid  poem  concludes 
as  follows : 

Unrest,  like  mist,  grows  ghostlier,  it  seems 

The  Thinker  questions.  .  .  .  Travail.  Fire  and  dreams. 

Dark  overhead  the  clouds  of  Europe  blow, 

Heat-lightning-lit,  dull,  ominous  and  low. 

Not  yet,  not  yet  the  hour,  but,  tryst  to  keep, 

A  spirit  moves  abroad  upon  the  deep 


212  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

And  will  be  stirring  soon.     And  will  be  sung, 
Soon,  to  a  clarion  of  nobler  tongue 
Than  inks  on  ticker-tapes  or  glibly  reads 
From  pompous  records  of  parochial  greeds 
Promulgate  for  the  People.  .  .  .  Midnight  blue, 
Stars  of  these  States  a-shining  through, 
The  dawn  awaited.     Dreaming,  peaks  and  spires; — 
The  house  still  locked  and  dreaming.    Dreams — and  fires. 

Thou  whose  full  time  both  buds  and  stars  await ; — 

On  the  curved  cup  of  destiny  whose  hold 

Permits  no  bubble  world  its  concave  gold 

Too  buoyant  to  relinquish;  at  whose  gate 

Love  takes  her  lantern  and  goes  out  to  Hate, 

Bending  above  the  battle's  bleeding  mould ; 

Our  country  thou  in  fire  and  dreams  enfold — 

In  forest  freshness,  her,  thy  consecrate. 

There  must  be  some  strange  beauty  hid  in  her, 

With  withes  uncut  by  sharp  awakening  sword; 

Some  precious  gift  not  veined,  some  truth  of  power 

Thou  art  maturing,  great  artificer. 

Fools  we,  and  blind ;  impatient  of  an  hour ; 

But  make  her  worthy,  for  we  love  her,  Lord ! 

This  poem  originally  appeared  in  The  Boston  Tran 
script  and  was  afterwards  used  by  William  Stanley 
Braithwaite  in  his  "Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse"  of 
1917. 

Mr.  Low  was  born  at  Fair  Haven,  Mass.,  on  June 
22,  1880.  Following  his  education  at  Yale  and  Har 
vard  he  entered  the  practice  of  law  but  since  the  war 
has  been  a  Captain  in  the  Ordnance,  U.  S.  R.,  at 
Washington,  D.  C.  His  home  is  in  Brooklyn,  New 
York. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  213 

Mr.  Low  has  published  the  following  volumes  of 
verse:  "The  Sailor  Who  Has  Sailed,  and  Other 
Poems,"  "A  Wand,  and  Strings,  and  other  Poems," 
and  "The  House  That  Was,  and  Other  Poems." 

Harold  Cook 

There  are  a  number  of  sincere  young  poets  writing 
in  the  United  States  to-day,  some  of  whose  work  is 
just  beginning  to  be  recognized  by  publishers  of  maga 
zines. 

Foremost  among  these  is  Harold  Cook,  twenty-one 
years  old,  whose  life  has  been  spent  in  school  and 
college,  intercepted  by  a  season  of  stock  company, 
until  the  war. 

"I  left  Union  College  before  graduation  to  join  up. 

That  is  all "  he  recently  said.  And  now  he  is  with 

the  U.  S.  Army  Base  Hospital,  Southern  General  Hos 
pital,  in  Portsmouth,  England. 

"The  New  Song"  of  this  young  poet  recently  ap 
peared  in  The  Smart  Set : 

Of  old  she  mused  about  the  winds 
That  pass  with  whisperings  of  leaves, 
Of  little  kindred  in  the  grass 
And  swallows  moving  in  the  eaves. 

And  she  would  look  with  wonder  eyes 
Upon  the  bursting  of  a  dawn, 
Or  draw  the  curtain  of  the  room 
To  watch  a  moon  above  the  lawn. 

Ah,  but  now  has  Love  come 
With  all  dawn's  beauty  in  his  eyes, 


214  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

With  mysteries  of  things  that  lie 
Within  the  roofs  of  paradise. 

And  now  her  song  is  of  his  hair, 
That  it  is  like  a  golden  sun, 
That  his  arms  are  a  little  house 
After  a  sullen  day  is  done. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

LOUIS  V.  LEDOUX,  JOHN  G.  NEIHARDT,  GEORGE 
EDWARD  WOODBERRY 

Louis  V.  Ledoux 

Conspicuous  among  the  few  purely  classic  poets 
which  American  literature  has  produced  is  Louis  Ver- 
non  Ledoux.  There  is  Helenic  beauty  in  his  lines,  and 
a  stately  richness  combined  with  the  simplicity  that 
secures  a  combined  effect  of  style  and  sustained  in 
terest. 

"Yzdra,"  a  tragedy  of  326  B.  C,  sustains  one's  in 
terest  throughout.  This  is  one  of  the  best  of  Mr. 
Ledoux's  works,  filled  with  such  colossal  lines  as 

"Yea,  that  were  good ;  to  live  one  perfect  hour, 
Then  fall  like  stars  while  all  men  stand  amazed." 

and 

"The  audience  I  craved  this  afternoon 

Must  now  be  held,  so  many  silken  hours 

Have  slipped  unfelt  between  our  wayward  fingers." 

Louis  Vernon  Ledoux  was  born  in  New  York  on 
June  6,  1880.  He  was  graduated  from  Columbia 
University  in  1902,  and  married  to  Jeanne  Logan  of 

215 


216  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Yonkers,  New  York,  in  1907.  He  makes  his  home 
at  Cornwall  on  the  Hudson.  Mr.  Ledoux's  works 
include  "Songs  From  the  Silent  Land,"  "The  Soul's 
Progress,"  "The  Shadow  of  Etna,"  "The  Story  of 
Eleusis,"  and  "George  Edward  Woodberry,  a  Study 
of  His  Poetry." 

John  G.  Neihardt 

A  distinctive  narrative  poem  is  John  G.  Neihardt's 
"The  Song  of  Hugh  Glass."  Graphic  in  color,  finely 
presented,  warm  with  such  pictures  as 

"It  was  the  hour  when  cattle  straggle  home. 
Across  the  clearing  in  a  hush  of  sleep 
They  saunter,  lowing;  loiter  belly-deep 
Amid  the  lush  grass  by  the  meadow  stream. 
How  like  the  sound  of  water  in  a  dream 
The  intermittent  tinkle  of  yon  bell. 
A  windlass  creaks  contentment  from  a  well, 
And  cool  deeps  gurgle  as  the  bucket  sinks. 
Now  blowing  at  the  trough  the  plow-team  drinks ; 
The  shaken  harness  rattles.     Sleepy  quails 
Call  far.     The  warm  milk  hisses  in  the  pails 
There  in  the  dusky  barn-lot.     Crickets  cry. 
The  meadow  twinkles  with  the  glowing  fly. 
One  hears  the  horses  munching  at  their  oats. 
The  green  grows  black.     A  veil  of  slumber  floats 
Across  the  haunts  of  home  enamored  men." 

John  G.  Neihardt  was  born  in  Sharpesburg,  Illinois 
on  June  8,  1881.  He  was  educated  at  the  Nebraska 
Normal  College,  and  at  the  University  of  Nebraska. 
His  marriage  to  Mona  Martinson,  a  sculptress,  took 
place  on  November  29,  1908. 


OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY  217 

Neihardt  lived  among  the  Omaha  Indians  for  six 
years,  in  order  that  he  might  study  their  character 
istics  and  learn 'their  legends. 

He  is  the  author  of  "The  Divine  Enchantment," 
"The  Lonesome  Trail,"  "A  Bundle  of  Myrrh,"  "Man 
Song,"  "The  River  and  I,"  "The  Dawn-Builder,"  "The 
Stranger  at  the  Gate,"  "Death  of  Agrippina,"  "Life's 
Lure,"  "The  Song  of  Hugh  Glass,"  "The  Quest,"  and 
"The  Song  of  Three  Friends." 

George  Edward  Woodberry 

Thoughtful,  philosophical,  cultivated,  are  the  adjec 
tives  employed  by  Louis  V.  Ledoux  in  describing  the 
poetry  of  George  Edward  Woodberry,  who  sits  in  high 
place  with  the  modern  New  England  poets. 

"The  Flight  and  Other  Poems"  is  a  collection  of 
about  fifty  of  his  more  recent  pieces.  It  was  published 
in  1914,  and  here  is  "a  poignant  realization  of  absolute 
equality  and  brotherhood  of  man."  Many  of  these 
record  a  passionate  search  within  the  soul  for  satisfac 
tion,  as  may  be  seen  in  these  lines : 

"We  sit  in  our  burning  spheres 

inimitably  hung; 
By  the  speed  of  light  we  measure  the  years 

On  purple  ether  flung; 

Without  a  shadow  time  appears, 

A  calendar  of  echoing  lights 
That  flame  and  dusk  from  depths  and  heights, 

And  all  our  years  are  young. 

We  gaze  on  the  far  flood  flowing 
Unimaginably  free, 


218  OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 

Multitudinous,  mystical,  glowing, 

But  all  we  do  not  see; 

And  a  rapture  is  all  our  knowing, 

That  on  fiery  nerves  comes  stealing, 
An  intimate  revealing 

That  all  is  yet  to  be." 

George  Edward  Woodberry  was  born  at  Beverly, 
Mass.,  May  12,  1855.  He  holds  degrees  from  Har 
vard,  Amherst  and  Western  Reserve,  and  is  a  fellow 
of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences  and 
the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters.  His 
works  include  the  following,  both  prose  and  poetry, 
volumes :  "History  of  Wood  Engraving,"  "Edgar  Al 
lan  Poe,"  "Studies  in  Letters  and  Life,"  "The  North 
Shore  Watch,"  "The  Heart  of  Man,"  "Wild  Eden," 
"Makers  of  Literature,"  "Nathaniel  Hawthorne," 
"America  in  Literature,"  "Great  Writers,"  "The  Life 
of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,"  "The  Inspiration  of  Poetry," 
"Poems,"  "Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,"  "The  Apprecia 
tion  of  Literature,"  "The  Torch,"  "Wendell  Phillips," 
"A  Day  at  Castrogiovanni,"  "The  Kingdom  of  All- 
Souls,"  "Two  Phases  of  Criticism,"  "North  Africa 
and  the  Desert,"  "The  Flight,"  "Shakespeare,"  "The 
Ideal  Passion." 

Mr.  Woodberry  makes  his  home  in  Beverly,  Mass. 


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